


Here is the Place Where I Love You

by Chokopoppo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 51,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2109627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You never forget the face of the person who was your last hope."</p><p>Hunger Games AU. The third quarter quell begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoo. Okay. There was an apparent demand for a fic of this sort, and by "apparent demand" I mean I really wanted to write it and nobody stopped me. Thanks to everybody who I forced to proofread this for me. Are you guys ready for The Sads? Let's hope I can aptly deliver them!

The Capitol grows incessantly busier and irritating as the time of the third quarter quell draws near. Maria Hill is still being paraded around the president's palace when Steve finally shoves off back to District 12. It is the second time in almost five decades he's ever actually _wanted_ to go home, the fourth time actually returning.

Peggy meets him at the station, flustered and happy, as though this is all something to celebrate through. Steve has to remind himself that Peggy has never really lived through a quarter quell before - she wasn't even old enough to be in the tribute pool at the last one. She tells him she's happy to have him, happy to have some company, happy to see him back home again. He smiles, says the district smells even worse than he remembered. It makes her laugh. Peggy always makes him feel a little better about coming home, even if the thought of remembering his life there makes him sick.

She is the only person allowed to carry him, ever, and even then only for short distances, like from his wheelchair to an actual seat. The Capitol-mandated television in her house sits on the wall directly opposite the couch, unlike in Steve's apartment, where it's shoved to the side of the mantlepiece as far away as possible. It's cold - the winter hasn't yet given way to spring - and Steve carries a blanket with him over his knees wherever he goes. When the excitement of seeing each other again wears down, Peggy is quieter, solemner. She makes two gin and tonics, and they both drink quietly.

"The quarter quells are awful, aren't they?" She says, finally. Steve looks up at her, but she's focused on her drink, and doesn't look back. "I was still a kid at the last one - but I knew all the tributes that year. I knew all of them. They were my friends."

Steve looks to the screen. There is nothing he can say. The games go beyond verbal condolences. 

~~

Pepper Potts and Phil Coulson are friends - such good friends, in fact, that Pepper is actually allowed to call him by his first name. Everyone gets the closest to the tributes from their district - holding a shared history is part of surviving in close quarters with each other. They drink in the kitchen. Phil has whiskey straight out of the bottle - Pepper makes herself a dry martini (very dry. Incredibly dry. With lots of olives. Like, at least three olives). Tony was supposed to come by, but he says he's "busy", which probably means he's building more toys in his basement. Pepper complains that she really should've known better - she's known Tony for years, almost twenty years now - and Coulson nods sagely. He doesn't, actually, know much of anything about romance. It's not really his ballpark.

The thought of having to listen to another goddamn announcement by president Snow is enough to make both of them get as drunk as they can on whatever Pepper has in her kitchen, which in turn makes her think that calling Tony is a Really Great Idea. Surprisingly enough, he answers, maybe because he's got a special ringtone for her, or maybe because he's drunk, too.

Tony is, in fact, making toys in the basement, if by basement, you meant lab, and by toys, you meant incredibly dangerous atomic weapons. He's had three beers to match his companion's half-bottle of wine. It's hard enough getting Bruce Banner to leave his house, much less his district. Getting him all the way to Tony's mini-mansion is practically a miracle, which pinned Tony back home. They are drinking. Bruce is welding. Neither of them has the forethought to decide that this is a bad idea.

"Look, Tony, I'm just saying that it's an important announcement and I think we're all legally mandated to watch it," Pepper says, speaking more loudly than she means to, "and if you're not going to watch it, then I'm going to tell you what the president has to say."

"Pepper, please," Tony responds, waving his hands around in the air like she can see him, "since when has that half-dead bag of bones ever said anything important? The TV's on upstairs, so it'll sound like we're watching, anyway."

"We? Who are you with?" In the other room, Phil fiddles around with the television screen. Pepper can't turn it off, but she did figure out how to mute it years ago, which is almost the same thing. Only they don't know how to unmute it, now.

"Banner's here," Tony says, his mouth obviously full of something. Pepper has the foresight to not ask what he's eating. She probably doesn't want to know. "We're adventuring in welding."

"What? How many drinks have you had? Whoever has the blowtorch needs to put it down now," she says. From the other room, a faint 'got it!' and the sound of a commercial springing to life pour through.

"But Pepper-"

"NOW, Tony."

~~

Clint gets home to find Natasha already at his kitchen table. He didn't invite her, but he's aware that he really shouldn't be surprised by now.

"Merry quarter quell," she deadpans, "aren't you going to invite me in?"

He’s pretty sure he had _three new locks_ on his door, and considers commenting on this, but withdraws the statement before it makes it to his mouth. He knows her well enough by now. She would've gotten in either way. "Merry quarter quell, Tasha. Would you like to come in?"

"Don't mind if I do," she responds. "Now ask me if I want a drink."

He looks in her hand. She's already holding a glass full of what he hopes is water, but knows is vodka. He sighs. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Your hospitality knows no bounds." She sips gently. "Go make yourself a drink, we'll have something together."

Sitting on the counter is a glass of beer, poured over a lot of ice. On the rim of the glass is a slice of lime, and a tiny pink umbrella. He looks at her for an explanation. She shrugs. "I thought it would make it more festive," she says. He smiles in spite of himself.

"Okay," he says, drink in hand, "let's go watch this son of a bitch make his dumb fucking announcement, huh?"

The TV's already set up, and they sit next to each other on the couch. Clint rests his head on her shoulder. Natasha does nothing in response, but she doesn't push him away, which is as close to inviting contact as she gets.

~~

Sam Wilson is spending the announcement night at his cousin's house, family scattered wildly about the building. Peggy invited him over, too, but he had to decline - family comes first.

Everyone else in the house, after a rousing and explosive dinner, collects around the television to watch. Sam, however, is an adult, and has no children, and so the games really don’t affect him anymore. He wasn't even alive for the last quarter quell. Instead, he washes dishes, and listens from the kitchen. Thoughtfully, his cousin turns the television up loud enough that he can hear it over the sink.

~~

Loki is too young to drink, but he drinks anyway, the hard cider that District 10 is so famous for. His mother doesn't mind - she drank at that age. The games are isolating on a personal level. They make you forget how to connect to anyone who hasn't been in the stadium. It's why she still shares a home with her boy. They both know what the dreams feel like.

Out of some childish habit, Loki sits on a pillow on the floor at his mother's feet. Frigga perches on her armchair, like Zeus of Olympus. They are both frozen in place, watching silently as hawks.

The vehement hatred of the Capitol is apparent in their home at all times. It has been present since Loki was born, cradled in the arms of a victor who was forcibly separated from her husband and elder son by the brutality of the districts. It is a family of victors - two from a career district, two from the stables of the Capitol's metaphorical inn. Loki knows his brother is a survivor, too, knows that his father's passing hit his mother hard, but he does not care. The careers are too close to the Capitol for his affection to travel so close, and the way his victory was cast aside as the fourth and final one for the Odinsons stings bitterly in his mouth. His mother was proud - moved to tears - but his father couldn't be bothered to care.

When he was a child, he would sit before his mother for her to braid his hair. Now, her hands are folded on her knees, and his hair hangs loose about his ears. They are too filled with contempt to be bothered with love.

~~

Maria gets home late the night before, her mentor in tow. He rubs her back and ruffles her hair, walks her home. It's surprisingly vulnerable for him, and by the next day, he's back to yelling and throwing things, but Maria remembers. Her sixteenth birthday was the week before the train ride, and he bought her an engraved cigarette case. She doesn't smoke, but it's a nice case, and it was particularly thoughtful. Mostly, Fury just talks about how she needs to win, act like she's proud of winning, no smiling, no crying, stand tall with shoulders back and eyes hard and ahead.

He doesn't come by on the day of, but he calls her, sounds pretty badly hungover. She reminds him of the announcement, and he swears a lot, hangs up on her. She doesn't mind. He lives in a house about twelve yards away from hers, anyway. If she really wants to talk to him, she can just walk to his front door.

Nick Fury, for his part, feels drained. No amount of alcohol in the world could make the train ride easier. It was awful when he did it, and it was awful for Maria now. If he hadn't enforced the "no emotions in public" rule so solidly, she would've been crying maybe every other night. Seeing the lower districts really shook her. Sure, 5 is no career, but watching her hands shake while she delivered the eulogies for 11 and 12 hurt him on a personal level. She's still a kid, and he feels guilty for letting it happen to her. It's hard not to care for your tributes, when you're a mentor. Harder when they live. 

The quarter quell is just a firmer kick in the face about the games, a reminder that Maria's a mentor now, that the first games she has to guide new tributes through are the hardest fucking games she'll probably live to see, unless she's like he was. He can remember how young he was during the second quarter quell. He can remember all four of the tributes that year, even if he can't remember their names. At least he was an infant for the first one, at least he can't remember that.

The television blares the Capitol's music loudly. His head hurts. He considers getting drunk again.

~~~~~~~~~~ 

The president walks to his podium. A hush falls.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “this is the 75th year of the hunger games.” Cheering. Respectful hush. “It was written in the charter of the games that every twenty-five years, there would be a quarter quell,” he continues, “to keep fresh for each new generation the memory of those who died in the uprising against the Capitol. Each quarter quell is distinguished by games of a special significance. And now, on this, the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the rebellion, we celebrate the third quarter quell,” More cheering. Another respectful hush. “As a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol,” and a dramatic pause.

“The male and female tributes are to be reaped…from the existing pool of victors in each District.”

~~~~~~~~~~ 

The world is quiet for a brief moment. Then, chaos.

Peggy sits, rigid, face stark white, lips hanging open. "You son of a bitch," she hisses, through clenched teeth. "You son of a bitch, you son of a _bitch_ ," and suddenly she is standing, shrieking, hurling her glass through the screen to watch it break on the wall beyond. "No! No, you fucking, you sick son of a bitch, no!"

Next to her, Steve merely crumples. He curls over his own knees, arms wrapped around himself like he's being torn apart in the gale of her rage. She screams, swears, hurls the bottle of gin against the wall, angry tears streaming down her face. Lowers herself to the ground. Buries her face in the blanket on his lap. He runs gentle fingers through her hair. "You won't be alone," he whispers, like it's an old secret they passed to one another in youth. "I'm sorry, Peggy. I'm sorry."

The plate in Sam's hand shatters on the floor before he realizes he dropped it. Blearily, as though in a dream, he stumbles out the back door, out the backyard, runs from the house across the roads and the alleys into the fields on the edge of the city, runs among the grain, falls to his knees. He will not return to the house for another half hour - when he does, he will clean up the shattered plate and finish doing the dishes in silence.

"Well, he's giving some bullshit about how no one is as strong as the Capitol, so the thing for the quell...is..." Pepper stops mid-sentence. The phone slips out of her hand, bounces on the floor. She moves her lips silently, but she cannot make a sound. Phil is transfixed, frozen in shock. From the phone, Tony calls Pepper's name in increasing confusion and panic.

In two minutes, Phil's phone will ring. Neither of them will make a move to answer it. They stare at the television, like they're waiting for another announcement calling the first one off, saying it was a mistake or a joke or something, anything, to make it stop being real. Nothing comes.

Frigga cries out in a pale shade of desperation - her son, silent at her feet, rests his head against her knees. She braids her fingers through his hair. "My boy," she wails, "my boy."

Maria covers her ears with her hands, gasping for air like there's none left in the room. She thinks, maybe, she should scream - but she can't get the air into her lungs for it. Instead, she stumbles towards the door, down her front steps into the night.

Across the street, Nick Fury flips over the table his television is stationed on, breaks a bottle on the floor, and grabs his coat on the way out of the house. He doesn't need it - Maria, stumbling along the ice outside her home, will. He gets to her before she can get to him, throws the coat around her shoulders, pulls her close against him. She wails softly into his shoulder. "Easy, Hill," he whispers, staring hard at the lights in her house, "this isn't public. You clock out if you need to."

Clint scrambles to his feet like he's ready to do something drastic. Natasha sits still. Nothing shakes Natasha anymore, really. Her eyes are wide and her face is pale, but next to Clint, who drops his drink, swears loudly, flips a chair over, swears more, and storms off into the kitchen, she is as calm as a tree in a gale. In ten minutes, the cacophony of Clint's rage will pass into a soft moaning - only then does she stand from her spot and follow him to the kitchen.

He is sitting in the corner, knees to his chest, head bent. Quite possibly, she thinks, he is crying. She sits next to him, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he leans into her. "There's a lot of tributes from District 7, you know," she says, and sets her head against his. "The most of any non-career. We might be safe." No response. He is definitely crying, she notes with some distress. "If they choose you, I'll volunteer. We'll go down together." Still nothing. This is not Natasha's area of expertise, even with Clint. She looks around for something, anything, to make him stop crying. "There's vodka left," she settles on, finally, "You wanna get drunk?" There's a pause in the snuffling. Then, a tiny nod. She rubs his back.

No one answers the goddamn phone. Tony calls Pepper three times, Coulson twice. Bruce suggests calling other victors, but Rogers is out of the house, Fury won't pick up, they're both too scared of Natasha to try her phone, and the Odinsons are frankly kind of uncomfortable to talk to. They're stuck on it for almost ten minutes before Bruce remembers that they actually have a television going upstairs, and that the announcement is so important, it'll probably be rerunning all night. Tony gets up the stairs first - it is his house - and starts jumping through channels. In three minutes, they find the first rerun of the announcement.

They watch, transfixed. Tony makes spluttering noises, like he's just been doused in frigid water - Bruce starts laughing. "Fuck this," he says, through heaves of breath, "fuck this goddamn country." He sinks into a chair, buries his fingers in his hair, and laughs. Doors slam in the rest of the house, and he knows that Tony is gone.

Onwards, later. First, let's go back.


	2. Maria Hill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 74th Annual Hunger Games.

Your name is Maria Hill, and eleven months ago, you won the 74th annual hunger games. Now, the carpeted floor of the victory train rumbles under your feet, and your mentor stares sternly down at you.

"Remember, Miss Hill," he says, his single good eye fixated on your face, "no fear, no crying, no happiness. You don't shake, you don't stutter. You practice reading those cards out loud? The ones Mrs. Villiers gave you?"

"Yes, sir," you say, firmly, respectfully. It's the voice you've practiced in front of your mirror every day for the past eleven months. It's sturdy under your hands, now. It feels safe in your mouth.

"Read them for me," he says, "try not to look at them."

You do. He nods satisfactorily. "Good enough," he says, which is about as close to a compliment as he gets, "you'll probably get better at 'em once you've read 'em to the big crowds a couple times. You get nervous in front of people?"

"No, sir," you lie. You hate crowds.

"Bullshit," he says, then, "nothing wrong with being nervous, Hill, just so long as no one knows. Keep it here." He pats his chest through the thick leather trenchcoat he always wears. "You ready for District 12?"

"I'll find out when we get there," you say. It's as close to true as you can get. Your mentor smiles.

"Give 'em hell, kid. Statuesque-like."

~~

You aren't ready for District 12. You're not ready for District 11, either. They blur together in your mind as equally terrible experiences, but when they happen, 12 is a little worse. You walk out onto the stage, head held high, hair tied tight behind your back, wearing something tight and black and expensive, and stare out into the crowd of dark-eyed, tight-lipped adults. There are huge revolving pictures on big television screens of the tributes, and your stomach clenches like a fist. You killed both of them. You remember them distinctly. Their families stare at you, crying, angry.

Your face holds firm, lips tight, eyes fierce, but your hands shake so badly you nearly drop the cards. Your chest is tight, and until you focus hard on calming your pulse, your breath comes too fast and too shallow, like you're drowning in one of the nightmares. You close your eyes, open them again, like you're expecting to see something less terrifying. Look down at the cards in your hands. You can't read them, but you remember what they say. Breathe deep - and speak.

You're barely done with the cards, lips trembling as you say "Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever," when the applause rises, resentful and slow, and Fury grabs you by the shoulder and pulls you back behind closed doors. You gasp at him, stare up desperately, but he is ironfaced, and makes no eye contact with you until he's trundled you back onto the train.

"Don't clock out here, Hill," he says, stern, "you've got cameras everywhere. The Capitol's got its eyes on you. Stay focused. Keep all this - " he points solidly at your brimming tears - "under wraps." You sniff, hard, and he sets a heavy palm on your shoulder. "Easy, Hill," he adds, softer, "it doesn't get harder. Twelve's the worst."

~~

Districts 11 and 12 are definitely the hardest, but 9 and 10 aren't much easier. You wake up screaming the night after District 9 - it was down to you and the tribute from there in the games, and you remember throttling her to death, her knife in your guts. Five minutes after, Fury comes sweeping in from the other side of the train. He gives you his coat to bundle up in when you tell him how awful blankets are. It smothers the dreams.

By the time you get to District 7, you've perfected a stony, solid face - or, more accurately, you've perfected internalizing the face you used to practice in front of the mirror every day. You keep the cards in your back pocket, shoulders back, head high, hands at your sides. You learn how to look imposing as you spit out the lies Mrs. Villiers wrote for you - about the courage showed by the tributes from the district, about the strength of the Capitol, about the unity of Panem today, tomorrow, forever - and the people of the district fear you, the way they fear Fury.

You remember the tributes from every District, the little girl and the skinny, spotty boy from seven, that terrifying murderous bitch from nine, the tall, strong, handsome boy from eleven that you had an embarrassing crush on, the dirty-faced blond kids from twelve - Jesus, you remember all of them. Fury's coat helps a little, but he needs it, too, and when he needs it you are plagued with dead hands reaching out to strangle you, the wailing screams cut short when you ripped a girl's throat out, grabbing, pulling, desperate hands drowning you in the lake from the stadium

And you wake up, screaming, sweating, flailing away from imagined hands grasping at you, and sometimes you can't stop screaming, can't wake up even when you're awake. You cannot get away until you hear the charging footsteps of Fury hurtling down the train to rescue you, his existence reminding you what is real and what is not. The night terrors were never as bad at home, but there was never anyone at home willing to help you. Fury is always present - he's not always helpful, but he's always present.

The careers are the easiest - you know, at least, that all the kids from 1 and 2 actually volunteered, that they were barely kids at all, that they went in for _glory_ , and it's easy to feel contempt for them. They are not like the starving children of 11 and 12, their citizens not hollow-eyed and bony-faced like pale imitations of humans. They stare up proudly, and you stare proudly out back, recite the cards from memory.

Panem today.

Panem tomorrow.

Panem forever.

~~

The Capitol is insufferable, and you have to spend an entire day there.

Well, actually, no. You spend most of your day with your escort and her tiny herd of costume minions being dressed and fitted and made up. Your dress is tightened and loosened and hemmed, your hair jerked this way and that, your face generally trussed up in some imitation of Capitol fashion. You feel ugly, like an overdressed bird of paradise, but your escort cries "happy tears" when she sees you, and Nick nods proudly, stoic, unsmiling. "How you feeling, Hill?"

"Like hell," you say flatly. You are too tired to lie.

He smiles and nods. "Go give it back to them," he tells you, and sets a hand on your shoulder.

Your dress is some prickly thing, a flaring Capitol party red, tight on your hips and loose below the knees. It gives you the sensation of tottering back and forth, unable to really shift your thighs to compensate for your actual footfalls. The heels don't help. You've never worn high heels before in your life - if your escort wasn't literally holding your hand the entire way in, you'd probably have hurtled down the stairs and died on the Capitol steps. Wouldn't that be perfect. President Snow could clean blood off of his front porch for once.

They're stifling. Stifling. Everyone in the Capitol wants to see you, stroke your dress, make conversation about what a _hero_ you are. Women with smiles like jigsaw nightmares pull you between them so they can get a picture with you. A man with his eyebrows nearly in his hairline offers to teach you to dance, doesn't wait for you to respond until he pulls you onto the floor. You resist the overwhelming temptation to slap him across the face, but it's a near thing. Personally, you're impressed with your own moral fortitude that you last as long as you do - but eventually you claim you're running to The Ladies (which you guess is what they call the toilets, up here) and slip away as fast as you can into a series of mostly unoccupied rooms.

The palace is generally packed, but some areas are more packed or less packed than other areas. The courtyard, for example, was impossible to navigate, but the library only has three or four couples smooching in the corners, completely oblivious to you - and the room that leads off of it, marked with a golden plaque (which, given that this is the president, is probably real gold) labeled "HALL OF VICTORY", is completely empty. The door isn't locked, or anything - it's just hard to find, or maybe boring. Good. You jostle the handle a little and slide in.

It's not a hallway, which is what you expected from the name, just a room. It's pretty big, to be fair, but it's not exactly long. Three of the four walls are covered in illuminated rectangles about the size of movie posters, glowing gently at your entrance, but there's no other lighting in the room, giving you the eerie feeling of being completely alone. It's the first time you've felt really alone in almost a year - no cameras, no Capitol citizens, no Fury, no Villiers, nobody. A huge weight lifts itself from your body, your shoulders relaxing, chin lowering, and, newly liberated as you are, you walk to the wall on your right to look at the nearest rectangle.

It's a picture of you.

You startle back for a second, stumbling on wobbling heels for a moment, then inspect the picture again. Specifically, it's a picture of you from almost one full year ago, fifteen and ponytailed and seriously photoshopped. Your Capitol portrait, you remember, from the games last year. Shoulders upwards, staring nobly into the distance. Fury insisted. Underneath it, on a silver plaque, reads:

74TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES  
MARIA HILL, DISTRICT 5

You blink, almost nervously, wobble a little more - step out of your shoes, no one's watching - and walk two steps to the left. The picture is of a face you vaguely remember, a boy with shark cheekbones and gelled back hair. You look at the plaque. 

73RD ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES  
LOKI ODINSON, DISTRICT 10

It clicks. Of course, you realize. Hall of victory. Past victors of the games. You turn around, survey the room, and something in your stomach drops. You didn't realize what a big number 74 was until you saw it all together at once. If you multiplied the number of pictures in the room by 23, you'd have the number of people who've died in the stadium. You feel sick.

Something, though, keeps you walking. At the next reaping, you figure with a shudder, you'll be a mentor - and Fury says you're going to have to get to know all the other mentors, too. Make friends in the Capitol. It'd be good to have names and faces under your belt, and you learn fast. Besides, even this beats being out "among the people". You take mental notes, especially with the prettiest victors. 71ST ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES - SAMUEL WILSON, DISTRICT 11. 70TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES - THOR ODINSON, DISTRICT 2. Wait. Odinson again? You look back to the plaque with the hair gel boy. Both Odinson, from different districts. Your brow furrows. You make a mental note.

You also make a note of the big blank space of wall in between 61 and 62, or PHIL COULSON, DISTRICT 8 and DARCY LEWIS, DISTRICT 9. It's too big for a regular picture to fit, but you aren't sure what else would go in there. A door, maybe? Why? You bite your lip and ponder studiously as you walk further along the wall, looking for faces or names you recognize.

Something weird strikes you as you inspect the plaque for PEGGY CARTER, DISTRICT 12. First off, that's the first District 12 victor you've seen so far, and you're close to the far side of the wall, but secondly and more strikingly, below her name and district is a third line. "KILLS: 7". It's not on the plaque to the right, closer to the present - but it is on the one to the left, further in the past. Maybe that's something that used to be lauded, mentioned, important. Like a score. The girl in the picture looks younger than you, maybe thirteen or fourteen, all big round eyes and softly curled hair. You can't imagine her killing anyone, let alone seven people. Maybe that's how she survived.

At the corner, the numbers skip from 51 to 49, but you don't really notice. You're focused on the kills counter, now, figuring out just how deadly these victors really are. You also notice that some of them have another, smaller silver plaque below the first one: "DECEASED". Guess you don't have to know those names, you think dryly, and skip over any and all with it. You've stopped feeling lonely in the room. You are surrounded by other victors, who are all staring proudly or prettily or humbly to one side of the frame or the other. The pictures have lowered in quality somewhat - the one of you was a holographic image, moving slightly as the viewer did, but these ones are just pictures.

You find the big gap between 41 and 42 on this wall, only it's not a gap - you actually have to stand back to look at it. It's another picture, almost twice the size of the other ones, framed in gold, with a plaque both at the top of the frame and the bottom. At the top, and then at the bottom, you read:

SECOND QUARTER QUELL  
50TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES

TONY STARK, DISTRICT 1  
KILLS: 4

The boy in the picture doesn't _look_ like Tony Stark. You've seen Tony Stark a million times, on TV, in Capitol propaganda, everywhere he could get his face. Tony Stark's got salt and pepper temples, and an almost shaved face, and a jawline that you could break a door down with, not...well. The boy in the picture has a militarily close haircut, and a clean-shaven, thin face, and an expression that's probably supposed to look careless and proud but mostly just looks dorky. The boy is...a boy. He looks like he breaks out sometimes, or stammers when people are looking at him.

You glide past most of the rest of the wall - now, you're looking for something specific. It's been a while, now, you should be getting back, but you have to know. Most of the plaques have the "DECEASED" label below them over here. You aren't sure exactly how old Fury is, but you want to know why the Capitol is so afraid of him. It takes longer to find than you expected. He doesn't look like Fury at all. He's young, and...kinda handsome, in a retro sort of way. Close-cropped hair, a tidy goatee. And, most significantly, both of his eyes stare out, proud, wordless, no eyepatch, no scars, nothing.

38TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES  
NICHOLAS FURY, DISTRICT 5  
KILLS: 21

It's the most kills of anyone in the room, you realize. The next highest was an 11 count. You press a palm to your forehead, breathe hard. The hands that grip you by the shoulders when you wake at night are soaked in blood. He's your mentor. He gave you a cigarette case for your birthday. You feel like you're going to vomit.

Instead, you nearly have a heart attack as the door you forgot the existence of slams open. You scream involuntarily - it's one of those short, little screams, like a yapping dog - and Mrs. Villiers screams too. Both of you gasp and collect yourself. "Maria!" She says, sternly. "Whatever are you doing in _here_?"

"I was just...looking at the - " you wave around at the walls, and when she follows your direction, she sees the shoes you abandoned on the floor.

"What are those doing there? Those are _Garvedericci shoes_ , darling!" She looks so impudent, dark hair springing everywhere in curls, you almost want to laugh. "Get those on and let's _go_! The president is about to make an announcement, but he's been keeping it on hold because everyone says you're _missing_. The entire _palace_ has been looking for you!"

You cast your eyes down, apologize, and cross the room to step into your shoes. When you turn around, you glance around the room one last time, and your eyes fall on the golden frame on the far left wall. You blink. It's not a photograph at all. It's a watercolor painting. A broad-shouldered, blond haired, strong, attractive young man. He doesn't look like a kid - he looks like he's in his mid-twenties at least, fully grown and beautiful.

FIRST QUARTER QUELL  
25TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES

STEVE ROGERS, DISTRICT 12  
KILLS: 0

Zero kills.

"Come _on_ , Maria dear," your escort calls from the doorway, "are you having more trouble with the heels? Oh, dear, I _told_ you that you should practice at those, they are so _very_ high," she clicks her tongue pityingly. "Come here, darling, you give me your arm and I'll help you make your way out."

~~

On the ride home, you strip yourself of the dress and wrap a blanket around your mostly naked body. You lie on one of the couches in the main room - Fury sits on the couch across from you, reading the paper. There's an amiable silence for at least an hour and half.

Finally, half asleep, you address him. "Sir," you mumble drowsily, "who's Steve Rogers?"

His one good eye flicks from the paper to you. "Steve Rogers?" He asks. You nod from your blanket cocoon. He sighs heavily, thoughtfully, folds up the paper on his lap. "Steve Rogers was the victor of the first quarter quell," he says, almost wearily, "first ever victor from the 12th District. Holds a fairly justified hatred for his home. Complete hermit. No one except Carter and the District 12 tributes see him much."

You try to think, but it's hard when you're bundled up like the filling of a delicious blanket burrito and the atmosphere is saturated with the soporific noise of the train on the tracks. "He doesn't have a Capitol portrait," you say, finally. "It's not a picture, I mean. It's a painting."

"He says it's against his religion to be photographed or seen on camera," Fury says, and unfolds the newspaper again.

"Is that a real religion?"

"Hell if I know."

You think hard again, eyes closed. "What does he look like now?"

"Old." Fury doesn't even pause. "Don't you worry about Steve Rogers, Hill. Just focus on your mission right now. You gonna go back to your room to sleep or what?"

You shake your head, eyes still fastened shut. "Nnn, 'm gonna stay here," you assert.

There's a long pause. Then, Fury says "me, too," and the light behind your eyelids lowers. You crack one eye open to see him reading with the desk light from behind him, the rest of the room dark.

"G'night."

"Night, Hill."

The weary sound of the train trundles on around you. You do not dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: the Hall of Victory is absolutely fanon. It was invented for this AU to help with conveying backstory. If it inspires you in some way, or you think it's a cool idea and want to borrow it, go ahead! I'm all about that.


	3. Samuel Wilson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 71st annual hunger games.

Your name is Sam Wilson, and you know you are going to die.

You have known you are going to die from the second the woman with the frosted pink hair called your name, all sharp grinning cat teeth and surgically implanted whiskers. It didn't hit like you thought it would, didn't break you in half and leave you weeping on the ground. It was just stone cold revelation, and every part of you that felt alive drained away through your back. You stand on the podium, the woman's clawed fingernails digging into your shoulder, and feel nothing at all. The reaping, you think numbly, is hell.

You get to say goodbye to your family, to your wingman, to anyone who thinks they want to see you one last time. And you act like you do at family reunions, smiling warmly and promising you'll think of everyone when you're up in the Capitol, and you feel nothing.

On the train ride, you meet the female tribute, and later, your mentor. The other tribute's name is Queue. She seems nice, but she is twelve, and you know that like you, she is going to die. Your mentor's name is Bartoli, which you forget almost immediately. He's big, badly scarred, and scary - his advice, bloodthirsty and useless. He says that senseless violence is what gets you through the games. You ignore him with ease, but Queue wraps on to his words like they'll save her life. Nothing will. Nothing will save either of you.

The inevitability doesn't hit you, at first. It's consciousness versus subconsciousness, knowing you're going to die versus feeling that you're going to die, but when it does, you take to wandering. You never technically ASK, but since your mentor  never stops you, you assume it's not against any rules to walk around on the different floors. Each of the floors is held by the tributes of a different district, with District 1 taking the 1st floor and District 12 on the 12th. Which makes sense, and also makes it easy for you to avoid any of the career districts, who honestly kind of scare you. You stick to everything north of the 6th floor (after accidentally bumping into Nick Fury there once), walking up and down the stairs and across the carpeted hallways barefoot. District 8 has the warmest heating, but District 12 has the best view from the windows. With a several day long life expectancy left, you find you prefer the view than the heat.

You're sitting on the windowsill, watching the Capitol live at night, when you hear the racket from down the hall. It sounds, mostly, like a lot of swearing and metal making hard contact against more metal. Against your better judgement, you investigate, following the sound down the hallways all the way to the elevator, where a man old enough to have white hair is scowling in contempt at the elevator doors from his wheelchair. He is also, you note, swearing. Profusely. And loudly.

You don't know what to say. You don't even know how to say it. You know you have to say _something_ , and consider a myriad of different sentences, the 'do you need help's and 'what's wrong's of the universe made applicable to this situation. Your mouth makes a noble effort regardless, and gives you "do you need any assistance, sir?" before your brain attaches it to 'things I actually said'. The man in the wheelchair stops swearing under his breath and turns his head to look at you over his shoulder. Piercing blue eyes run the gamut through you. This was a terrible idea.

"Who the hell are you?" He snaps. You swallow, hard.

"My name is Sam Wilson, sir,"  you stammer, because you've always been taught to show respect to your elders, "I, uh, I'm the tribute for District 11." No hands in your pockets, you remember, it's disrespectful. Your fingers hang uncomfortably loose at your sides.

He stares at you for a minute, like he's trying to parse you, then says "get over here, then, dammit, if you're going to make yourself useful you can stop twisting my neck by standing back there," and you scramble to his side, eager to move.

"So what do you need?" You press on hastily. Don't forget what you came over here to do.

He sighs, deeply. Taps the elevator door with the cane in his hand. "I need to get downstairs," he says, and holds up a palm to your face as though to silence an oncoming comment, "but the idiots at the Capitol have apparently forgotten what elevators are supposed to be _for_. They've redesigned them," he spits the word 'redesigned' like venom, "and now they're too small for my goddamn wheelchair. The fucking nerve," he snarls, staring intently at the elevator doors. You glance at him, and at the elevator, and back to the stairs. He's not big. You could lift him, easy.

"Well, if you need to get downstairs, I'm sure I could carry you down," you offer. The old man, to his credit, only looks mildly startled, and you press on. "I could probably carry your chair, too. It's only twelve floors, at most. Where are you trying to go?"

"I have no doubt you _could_ , but you won't," he says. Then, "I could use some help, but I won't be carried. Get me up," he waves generally at the chair, "and let me lean on you. At least then, I can keep my dignity intact."

"Yes, sir."

It takes some maneuvering, and a lot of getting snapped at by a cranky old man, but both of you (and the wheelchair, folded up to fit) make it into the elevator. You see what he means - it really is too small. You wonder why you didn't notice before.

Still, you both make it to the first floor generally intact, and he stares at you for a few seconds after you lever him back into his chair. Furrows his brow. Asks, "your name's Wilson, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hm." He nods, like you've unlocked some secret code. "Well. You mind if I mention you by name when I need help again?"

"Oh, uh," you blink, startled, but recover as best you can. "No, sir, of course you can. Only, I'm busy most of the day, so I might not be, uh, as available as someone else."

He shrugs. "So am I," he responds, and, after some hesitation, adds, "well, you'd better head back to your room, Wilson. Long day tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." You dip your head towards him respectfully, and with some hesitation (you're not totally sure he's going to make it out of the building alright), turn to head back to the stairs.

"Wilson."

"Sir?" You whirl around, stare down the hallway attentively.

There's a pause, like he's looking for the right words. "I'm rooting for you," he settles with, "in the games."

How are you supposed to respond to that? You have no idea. "Thank you, sir," you say, because it seems like the right thing. Apparently, it is - the old man nods, satisfied, and without another word, turns his chair around and wheels away.

You have eleven flights of stairs to contemplate what happened. You walk slowly, just in case.

~~

The old man's name, you find out from your own mentor, is Mr. Rogers. He lives on the floor with the 12th District tributes all year round, which you guess means he's one of the only people in the center for most of the year. You ask him, in the elevator, why he doesn't live up in the center of the Capitol, or back in his district. He says people make him feel sick. Which is kind of the end of that.

Mr. Rogers is probably the tiniest adult you've ever met. In District 11, you're big or you're dead - even the oldest men don't get much older than 50 or so before they collapse in the fields, and they're still broad-shouldered and muscle-packed. Mr. Rogers is swamped in his own chair, his own grey suit, pale as death and unobtrusive as a silent child. He doesn't smile at anyone, doesn't even really look at anyone. People either don't notice him at all, standing or walking in front of him absentmindedly, or notice him too much, staring at him like they're trying to count every hair on his head. It's the wheelchair, he says to you in the elevator once, the goddamn wheelchair ruining him. He says the people who bother to let him exist at all treat him like an infant, babytalk and simpering congratulatory bullshit for simple tasks included. He says don't you ever treat a grown-ass man like a four-year-old just because his fucking legs don't work, do you understand, Wilson? You say yes, Mr. Rogers.

He's smart about the games, smarter than your own mentor by far, shrugs off advice like he's got nowhere to keep it. Stay away from the cornucopia, just take your own pack and run for cover, he tells you. Only it's Mr. Rogers, so he says it like "goddamn poor sons of bitches with idiot trainers going straight into a bloodbath. Kids go out like a light in the first 20 minutes. You wanna stay alive, Wilson? You do the opposite of what everyone else does. Anything you need is with you on the drop." You're really good at translating what Mr. Rogers says, actually. He says "your opponents are weak - scare them", he means 'go show off'. Or he says "there are no allies in the games", but he means 'watch your back'. Or he says "dammit, Wilson, stop moving around so much", which means 'I need help'.

Your mentor says things like "run for the cornucopia, grab the axe, and get hacking", which probably means "I don't value your life at all, and neither should you". When you ask him what happens if someone else gets there first and kills you before you can get a weapon, he says "then you didn't really deserve to win, then, did you?" You think that's just an elaborate way of saying 'fuck you', but you and your mentor don't really see eye to eye, so that's basically all guesswork. 

You repeat the advice to Mr. Rogers anyway, who snorts condescendingly and lets out a stream of expletives you didn't think old people were even supposed to know. He also spews out a series of new terms for your mentor, none of which you can repeat but all of which you agree with. "That strategy," he says, waving the flask in his hand around vaguely, "has worked about six times in the past fifty years. I guess it worked for him, and...who else is still alive who did that? Fury, that's right. So if you think you're Nick Fury, go right ahead and try that, but most of us aren't." You laugh and shake your head. You've met Nick Fury exactly once. It was probably the most terrifying moment of your life.

"Yeah, I don't really listen to him when I can help it," you say, leaning your hip awkwardly against the armrest of a nearby couch. Mr. Rogers' home is mostly bare, but there are chairs and couches everywhere. It reminds you of your uncle's home, where you're not allowed to sit down until you're invited to, to show your resolve or something. Habit keeps you standing. "I think I like your advice better."

"Bullshit. I'm not giving you advice."

You laugh. "Right, my bad." Mr. Rogers is always insistent that he's just complaining out loud and doesn't notice you at all. Out of habit, you look to him to see if he needs anything. He's sitting back in an armchair, jacket of his suit discarded somewhere, all starched white shirt and suspenders. He should, by all means, look smaller - but instead he looks like a monarch, perched on his throne high above the proletariat. You're on his turf, here. Tread with caution. "If I can ask..." you glance away, and then glance back. Whenever you speak, he turns his full attention on you, and the intensity of his gaze is almost frightening. "...how come you...know so much? About the games?"

"You can't," he says, but it's not as sharp as it usually is. You nod, glance towards the door. You should really go - you finished putting his groceries away for him almost half an hour ago. "Do you drink, Wilson?"

You blink at him. "Uh, I'm only seventeen, sir. I can't."

"I didn't ask if you _could_ , Wilson," he snaps, "I asked if you _do_."

"Uh." Glance at the door again. Back to Mr. Rogers. Something about his gaze is almost - deafening? It's impossible to describe. It kind of makes you want to throw up, but not quite in a bad way. "Only as a painkiller, sir," you start, stumbling through your thought process, "you know, for surgery? And things?" You have no idea what the right answer for this question is, what he's expecting, what he wants.

Mr. Rogers does this thing when he's thinking where he looks down without moving his head, like he's reading a book, moves his eyes back and forth behind lashes, then looks up, intensity of his gaze redoubled. He does it to you now, purses his lips, holds the flask in his hands in your general direction. "Here," he says, and looks away from you, "you've only got four days for sure, you may as well try everything."

You pause, glance at him, and gently take the flask from his hand. His arm darts back to his lap like a fish across the water, and his eyes glide vaguely to the Capitol-mandated television set on the wall. "And sit _down_ , Wilson, Jesus, you're in someone else's home," he adds.

"Yes, Mr. Rogers." Without really thinking about what you're doing, you sit. And drink. And almost spit out whatever you just put in your mouth. It tastes like goddamn turpentine, and you think the skin on your tongue is going to burn off. Against better judgement, you swallow, tears forming in your eyes, and glance back to Mr. Rogers, who looks like he's trying desperately not to laugh.

"Trust no one," he says, smiling - and against your better judgement, you smile back. You've never seen him without the perpetual scowl before. "You alright, kid?"

"I'm fine," you say, which is a lie. "I can't feel my face and I might be dying, but I'm fine."

He laughs - like, honestly, genuinely laughs - into the palm of his hand, like it's a quiet, private thing to laugh about. "I'm sorry, that was mean," he adds, eyes crushed nearly shut, "I'm sure I have something lighter than that."

"Uh, that's okay," you respond quickly, "I think I might already be drunk, anyway." He laughs, louder, and you catch yourself laughing too. You can't feel your thumbs.

~~

You ask him to come with you to the stadium, when you go. He snorts and says he's not doing anything else today, anyway, but he takes your hand in two of his, and you're not emotionally ready to translate that out of a Rogersism.

Both of you talk like it's a crime to get personal. He pats your uniform, tells you it's thin enough that it's probably a tropical or desert biome. He asks you what do you do about the cornucopia? You say run away. He asks how you're going to stay alive for the first half? You say by hiding. He asks you are you going to make allies or friends? You say no, sir. He observes you for a minute. Tells you to help him stand up out of his chair.

He doesn't look any bigger when he's standing than when he's sitting down. In fact, he kind of looks smaller. His body curves to the side slightly - his spine, you remember vaguely, is shaped wrong - and he leans heavily on his cane. His head barely comes up to your shoulder. He tells you he's done all he can for you, and sets a tiny hand on your arm. You breathe out, hard, and hug him totally without permission. The timer on the wall begins reading out your minute countdown. He hugs you back.

He's a little pink in the face when you pull away, and you start to wonder when he last got hugged by anyone - but then you stop, because thinking about that is making you really upset. You don't intend to cry, so you just kind of stumble into the tube without saying anything else, then turn to look back at him. He says good luck, Sam. You say thank you, Mr. Rogers.

He says my name is Steve.

It clicks.

The shuttle door closes, separating you officially from the oldest living victor of the hunger games, and as the floor rises beneath you, and Mr. Rogers and the most _shit-eating grin_ you have ever seen sinks away from you, you try not to focus on the fact that you just spent numerous days in the presence of _Steve Rogers_ and no one told you and you didn't even know it was _him_.

The sun is blinding above you, and the tributes around you are all standing on raised pillars over black sand. Desert biome. You met _Steve Rogers_. The cornucopia is filled with water, but you think you can see a river in the distance. You met Steve Rogers and he said he was rooting for you. There's no good cover anywhere, but the sand dunes and scrub brush look like navigation is going to be pretty difficult for everyone. You met Steve Rogers and you were the first person in almost two decades he invited into his house. The countdown is at three. Two. One.

You met Steve Rogers, and he told you how to win.

You move.


	4. Natasha Romanov

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 68th Annual Hunger Games.

The floor is rising below you, and you run your thumb over your token before you tuck it back under your shirt. You don't need a necklace flying out and showing all the tributes there's something they can grab.

Twenty-four. Twenty-three. Twenty-two.

The sun is agonizingly bright, and the arena smells terrible. You look around for something that might help you. Some kind of bog. A swamp biome or something. The golden horn before you is sunken deep into an island of mud, all the packs and weapons strewn about and around in varying levels of gunk depth. Below you, around the pedestal, is dark water, sloshing unpleasantly towards you.

Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen.

There are packs in some of the trees in the opposite direction of the cornucopia, but they're so far away from the center of the arena, who knows what they have in them. Maybe nothing useful. Maybe even a bomb. You make a point of staring lustfully at four different ones, though - you can feel several sets of eyes on you.

Eleven. Ten. Nine.

They have to be traps. The Capitol would never give tributes an easy way out. You zero in on the horn again, try to get a feel for the weapons. You can use every weapon, of course - you were trained to use every weapon - but your district rings against your chest, and you'd kill to have an axe. You'd kill for an axe more efficiently if you had an axe. Good thing there are two of them. 

Three. Two. One.

You have no idea how to deal with the water around you. On instinct, you step off.

As you hit the bottom in the knee-deep water, you hear two splashes from District 4's pedestals, their bodies curling over in diving arches. As you haul yourself through the water, running competently, two cannons fire above you. No one else has moved from their pedestals, maybe afraid to crack their heads, too. Fine. Head start for you.

By the time you're scrambling up onto the mud in the center, trying to keep steady, slipping, squishing, you start to hear splashes around you. You are busy scrambling into body armor, taking the closest pack and grabbing your axe, kicking the closer packs as far away as possible. Fuck all your opponents equally, you think. Make it impossible to know which ones are good and which ones are bad. Survival of the fastest? Only if you're _you_.

The career pack gets to you first, and you're ready for them.

You slice open the District 1 boy's stomach and he screams, falls back, slam the blade straight into the District 2 girl's face, the remaining boy comes at you with a hammer and you spin away, dropping the axe with the dead girl, swing back for another weapon, double ended spear in your hand and you slice his throat open and you are flying, now, there is cannon fire in the air and the packs in the trees on the other side of the water have to be traps because you hear an explosion and a scream and two cannons in the air

The last career girl slips and falls on the mud and you pin her head to the ground with the spear, retrieve your axe from the other girl's face, look to the other tributes coming in hot and fast now, save for the ones that run, grab the second axe, hurl the first one through the air to embed itself in a coward's back

A boy comes hurtling at you with a knife in his hand but it bounces off the armor on your chest, comes back around to strike you across the face and you make the coward's choice and the _right_ choice to turn _you are bleeding you are bleeding you are bleeding_ and run past the cornucopia to put it between you and the growing horde. You step on part of a body when you are in the water _District 4 dove into foot-deep water_ and scramble into the muddy darkness on the other side, almost fall as something heavy hits you in the back but _keep running hide in the darkness_ you will not die here

~~

From your new perch in one of the weeping willows, under the cover of the dense branches, you make your official day one observations.

First off, you're not sure who's died yet - you'll only be sure when nighttime comes and the Capitol gives the word - but the entire career pack has been wiped out. The 4's took themselves down, and you killed everyone in 1 and 2 yourself. There are packs under or in the branches of a number of the trees around the perimeter of the cornucopia bog (which is what you've taken to calling it), and to your knowledge, they're all traps of some sort. Maybe five tributes have died from them, you think, though you weren't counting properly. You weren't really thinking at all. You don't know what happened in the bog after you left, but the cannons were going off once every few seconds for almost five minutes, so it had to be something bad.

Your axe isn't the axe you should've taken. There were two - one with a metal handle, and one with a wooden handle. Yours is the wooden one. The other one had holes throughout the handle to keep it light, manageable, throwable - which is probably why you got someone in the back with it - but it's lost in the bog, now. Whoever has the cornucopia has it. The axe you have isn't _bad_ , but it's a real axe, all wood and dirtied iron, not a fighting tool. It'd be good for taking out branches and trees and stuff, but not so good for killing people with.

The pack you grabbed really was the best pack on the island. Three throwing knives, a filled water pouch, strips of some kind of jerky (you'd say beef, but you're not District 10 or anything - you couldn't tell one kind of meat from another), dried fruit, iodine, a long coil of rope, bandages, a blowpipe (with a pack of darts), a tent, and a tiny glass bottle of clear liquid clearly marked "POISONOUS: DO NOT TOUCH". You were sort of hoping for night vision goggles, since you've heard those are a thing, but you also really have nothing to complain about. Even the outside of the bag is enviable - dark green with a mesh covering, which you've stuck leaves from the trees and bushes into for extra camouflage. The thing that hit you when you were running was some kind of arrow - one of the kids must be using the bow, unless they're dead too.

You have a plan. It's pretty good, you think, since you DID come up with it and no one else is going to toot your horn for you. The axe, the blowpipe, and the throwing knives change things a little, new ups and downs, but the basic plan is the same. The other tributes, to be frank, fucking sucked at the rope tests in the training center - they could barely climb up, and they certainly couldn't stay up there once they got up. You, on the other hand? You grew up surrounded by trees, hid in them when you played hide and seek with Clint as a child, and when a boy at school broke your heart in eighth grade, and when you wanted to get the drop on the boy who beat up your best friend in the parking lot as a freshman. Clint used to joke that you've been climbing trees since you crawled out of the womb. Fine. Fifteen years of experience to your name. You can scale a tree straight up without a branch to grab onto - the low-hanging willows are almost embarrassingly easy.

Thankfully, you can see that the willows give out as you get further towards the edge of the map (arena. Whatever). It goes from picturesque "what Capitol citizens think a swamp should look like" to an actual swamp - tall, naked Bald Cypress trees and every kind of unmanageable pine sinking happy roots into muddy hills and dirty water. Tall grasses and cattails spring up wherever they can, and there's a perpetual buzzing of far-off insects. You desperately hope the Capitol didn't think to weaponize gnats - they're annoying enough without the ability to kill you. You're going to get as deep into the forest as the Capitol will allow without "turning you back", find the other tributes, and wait the game out. You're very patient.

The night is falling fast. In the distance, a screaming rises up from back towards the cornucopia. You hold still, as though terrified that whatever it is could cross the arena all the way to you if you so much as blink. The screaming grows louder, louder, cuts off with a gurgle. Birds take flight from somewhere in the distance. Your fingers reach under your neckline and pull your token out without you noticing, thumb running over it. It's too long between the screaming and the cannon. Too long.

~~

The arena's night sky is a deeper blackness of night than you've ever experienced, and there are more stars in it than you realized existed. Then you realize that they probably don't all exist, and that the capitol's just using it as an attractive nuisance or something, to keep tributes engaged and distracted. It's been four hours since you climbed up into the willow, and as you wait, you consider the pros and cons of nocturnal movement. Due to other people sleeping at night, it would be easy to sneak up on other tributes, and to move without being attacked. Unfortunately, it would also mean trying to reset your own biological clock, and besides which, most of your weapons now are ranged. Without night-vision goggles, aiming would become near impossible.

You rub the token in your fingers thoughtfully, stare down at it. It's a pendant, small and cylindrical, carved out of wood and very soft from years of thoughtful rubbing. Above it, situated like a rosary, are two jet black beads. Your father tried to convince you that they were black pearls, and when you were a little girl, you believed it - but now you know they are just carefully shaped bits of rock. It hangs on a leather strap around your neck. It's all very - what was the term? Brutalist? No, maybe not that. You never really paid attention in art classes, anyway. You're no good at them.

The Capitol music begins to blare loudly into the night, and your head jerks up so fast you almost give yourself whiplash. You count the deaths: the boy and girl from 1, the boy and girl from 2, the boy from 3, the boy and girl from 4, the girl from 6, the boy and girl from 9, the girl from 11, the boy and girl from 12. Thirteen dead. More than half in the first day. Eleven of you are still alive in the arena, then - and you know where almost every single one of them is. They've been passing under your tree all day, apparently physically unable to look up. You, obviously, are with yourself - then, there's the big alliance, six people strong, led by the girl from 3 and containing all the 8s and the 10s, as well as your male tribute from 7, situated at the cornucopia - two of the others, the boy from 11 and the boy from 5, were working sort-of together, and were actively looking for you - and, if you're correct, the girl from 5 or the boy from 6 is somewhere on the other side of the arena. That's where the screaming came from. You'd bet on 5. She's dangerous. And she's probably coming this way soon.

You reach through your bag for your rope, and find a small pack of matches that you didn't have before. You tuck them into your shirt thoughtlessly, then tie yourself and the pack to the trunk of the tree. You've got a long day ahead of you.

~~

The problem with boys is this: they aren't big thinkers. You're not sure at what age they become good at using their brains, because you've met adult men who can think, but boys, other teenagers, are really pretty bad at it.

You wake up to the sound of two idiots getting into a fight, not a full twenty feet from the tree you're in. From the sound of the argument - and it's getting pretty loud - they know you're up there. District 5 says you should be invited into their team - District 11 says you should be killed while sleeping. They're already wrestling. Neither of them has a weapon - it's not like they're trying to kill each other, even - and they've become totally oblivious to the world around them. You reach into the pocket of your pack that you've been keeping the pipe, darts, and poison in. You're not sure what kind of poison it is, but you think you're about to find out.

Pipe kept carefully between your lips, you dip the ends of two darts in the clear liquid. Cap it gently. Place dart one gently in the pipe. Watch the boys wrestle. Ready, aim, blow.

Your aim was always the best - the only person you ever lost a game of darts to was Clint, and to be fair, you're sure he had to be better than you at something. The dart hits 11 in the neck. For a minute, nothing changes, the boys wrestling, shouting, swearing. Then, screaming, screaming like bloody murder, clutching at the neck, panic, shouting, confusion. You ready the second dart. 5 is all over the place, standing, rolling, moving around, but he pauses when he bends over his pack, exposing his back as he looks around for anything that might help. Ready, aim blow. The reaction, this time, is immediate. Screaming, wailing, collapsing, writhing. The first boy has stopped screaming and started foaming at the mouth. You tuck your supplies back into their pocket of your pack, untie yourself and the bag carefully, coil the rope up and back into its place, and listen for incoming trouble. One set of footsteps. Then another, and another. 

If it'd been just the District 5 girl, you would've taken her hand-to-hand, but you're not stupid enough to go against the big alliance. You drop to the ground, sweep up one of the two packs, and run like the wind. If the circumstances had been different, you might've gone through the bags, seen which one was better, taken a weapon or something, but there's really no time. You hope you find something good.

~~

The rest of the day goes by with little eventfulness. You get further out into the arena, find a mostly bare cypress, scale up the side of it like a spider crawling up a wall. You have to get almost 40 feet up before you get any branch covering, but when you do, you just want to rest. You tie yourself to the trunk of the tree and go through your new pack. There's basically no food left - a couple dried apricot slices, which you munch on thoughtfully - and there's no sign of water ever being a part of the pack. There is, however, an awl and a spigot, which you quickly add to the utilities belt you also find deep in the pack, and some kind of head-clipping monocle thing. The glass is green, which you hope means "night vision", but you really have no idea what the damn thing does. You put it on, anyway, attaching the proper clips to your ear and the bridge of your nose. It feels less like a monocle and more like half a pair of glasses, but you can't help that. Nothing else in the bag - you roll it up and discard it onto the ground, and, with some consideration, toss the tent from your bag to the ground, too. You know for a fact you're not going to use it.

There's a camera in the tree, watching you. At first, you were tempted to smash it, but it looks pretty much indestructible, and besides which, you can soothe yourself by talking to it. Which sounds really stupid, but the boredom is palpable. You're going to be here for a while - not too close to the sides of the arena so as to get attacked, not too close to the center so as to get attacked, near tons of other branches of cover to escape into, above the potentially deadly stinging gnats (which, yes, actually do sting - they hung around your calves, and now everything below your knees is burning) - so you might as well get comfortable. Plus, talking to the camera is basically just talking to the viewers. It's important to be likeable.

"I'm not letting myself get worried about the alliance yet," you say, chewing on a slice of dried mango, "they'll probably hunt down the girl from District 5 first, since she's got no loyalty in the group, but if they come after me, I'll be ready."

"I only have four blowdarts left," you say, three hours later. You've gotten into a position of inclining your head slightly towards the camera. "Those are basically guaranteed kills when the poison's on 'em, I think. But the two guys from this morning were the only cannons I've heard all day. So there's still..." you count on your fingers. You'd forgotten about the boy from 6, briefly - the alliance might go after him, too - but there are still "nine other people in the arena, which is still too many for me."

"What kind of fruit is this? Does anyone know?" You wave the tiny pack of dried fruit in front of the camera. "We don't really eat fruit in District 7 - my neighbor has a little apple tree in his yard, out in front? Only it hasn't grown apples since I was three years old. I guess it just ran out. I forget what apples taste like."

"I saw the District 6 boy pass through half an hour ago," you whisper quietly, "I think he's going towards the edge of the arena. If he sends some kind of attack my way, I'll kill him myself."

"I heard a cannon. I think the District 6 boy is dead."

"Or maybe the Big Alliance is getting bored and turning in on itself."

"These gnats are driving me crazy. I have these hideous rashes from the knees down."

"I got a cut on my cheek yesterday, in the bloodbath? And I used a lot of my iodine on that. I don't want to use a lot more of it, because I feel like I'm really gonna need it for water, but I desperately want to clean these rashes. But this entire arena smells like swamp water. I don't think I can even rely on this spigot."

"Is that smoke?"

It is. Billowing black smoke vomiting up from somewhere on the other side of the bog, thin streams at first but growing broader, further, fast across the thick tree covering. There is yelling, then screaming. You are quickly growing tired of the sound of screaming - when it is not bloodcurdling, it is vicariously embarrassing and tedious. Death, though frightening and unfortunate, is nothing uncommon in the lumber mills and yards. You have been acquainted with death your whole life. You don't even have nightmares about it anymore.

The fire spreads rapidly on the other side of the bog, but never crosses over. In the next half hour, two cannons will fire. Probably, that means the Big Alliance is out searching for the three stragglers. You wonder if the District 5 girl set the fire herself, and feel a surge of admiration - and inspiration. You inspect your axe, use it to chop off one of the branches nearby, smile in satisfaction as it slices clean through in one stroke. Take a look at the leaves you stuck in the mesh of your bag. They're still green, but barely. You were thinking about changing them soon.

Five cannons have gone off today. Strong work on an eleven-count. Night falls, and you snuggle up against your tree trunk, under the ropes. You end this tomorrow. You never did 'waiting around' very well.

~~

The monocle, unfortunately, isn't night vision. It is, as far as you can tell, just a piece of green glass with a bunch of buttons and dials near it. It must have SOME purpose, you suppose, but for now, it's not a purpose you really want or need. You are, just the _tiniest_ bit, disappointed.

Last night, you found out that all three of the tributes you didn't kill yourself were from the Big Alliance, which you guess means it isn't so big anymore. It also means that District 5 and 6 are still wandering around somewhere out there, and they're probably not coming to you. They must want you to hunt them down. Fine. You'll smoke them out yourself.

You refill your water pouch to start the day - you've used awls and spigots enough times to know how to get water out of the trunk of a tree, and a drop of iodine to clean it - and stare at your token for a while. It's still too early for anyone to be moving around, so you're probably safe for another hour or two. You glance to the camera. It's actually still there. Weird. "My best friend made this for me," you whisper to it, "when we were kids. It used to have my name engraved in it, but I rub it too much," you say, and laugh as quietly as you can. "I'm gonna win for him. I will win."

Half of the alliance is left, and they're probably growing testy - both the 10s and one of the 8s are dead, leaving 3, 7, and 8 - might turn against each other soon. The number of tributes that died in the bloodbath this year was frankly ridiculous, and it seems to have doomed you to a short game. Well, doomed the Capitol. It's blessed you. You untie yourself from the trunk of the tree, shove the rope back in your bag, and start working.

You've only been going for a few minutes when an arrow shoots past you, going skyward from the ground, and you almost fall off your branch in shock. You peer over the edge to see the District 6 boy readying another arrow in his bow. He looks up, sees you. Smiles. Waves. "Morning, beautiful," he calls up, "you know, I should thank you for leaving this tent down here. I never would've found you otherwise."

Shit. The tent. You kind of forgot about that.

You turn back to your work, going as fast as possible now - time is of the essence - and as you shove the now-dead leaves from the mesh of your bag under the cage of twigs you've created on the furthest end of your branch, another arrow comes spiraling up, this time uncomfortably close. "Come on, girl, don't be like that," he croons, "you playing hard to get? You want me to climb up there and get you?" Actually, you wouldn't mind. If he tried to climb, and fell conveniently to his death - but then, he's the other tribute who did well on the ropes test. "Hey, girl, come on down. No? You're forcing my hand, woman," he says, playfully, almost testily, and below you, he begins to climb.

You reach into your neckline, pull out your pack of matches. District 6 is too distracted with the effort of climbing to notice you striking a match, bringing it carefully down to the dead-leaf-twig prison. Dead leaves are as satisfactory as old newspaper in a pinch. Blow over them gently, like your father does - the flame flickers, smokes, and burns. The twigs catch. As you vacate the branch, the live leaves begin to burn, too. From the next branch over, you swing your axe experimentally in your hands, and look down at the boy on his way up. He's barely made any progress at all, maybe a yard or two. It'd be nice to strand him halfway up the tree, you guess, and you fan the flames gently.

The entire branch begins to flame up, and with a contented nod at the camera, your axe swings down and hits the branch. It's not quite enough - your branch was the thickest, the sturdiest - and you have to wrest the iron back out to strike it again. The boy screams as the branch drops on him and you hear his body falling, but you are already moving from your tree to the next one over. The swamp floor is particularly dry here, dead leaves and bushes scattering the ground, and you wouldn't be surprised if your entire tree went up. You scramble to your next tree, and then to the next one. The boy is running, now, away from you, and you glance back to the tree. You were right. The flaming branch has infected the trunk. Scramble to the next cypress.

You clamber down and dismount a couple trees over and take to traveling by foot. The cannon hasn't gone off for the District 6 boy, so he probably made it to the water in time. Whatever happened, he's not on fire anymore, or he'd be dead. You walk, fairly slowly - you don't even know where you're going, or why - and try to make sense of the game. You've started a forest fire, probably. You don't know who's in the bog, but it might be safe enough now for you to approach, with only three in the alliance and now turning against one another. It'd be an easily defendable position, more comfortable to sleep in than trees, as well as an attractive nuisance for other tributes -

"There she is!"

Shit. _Shit_.

Three sets of footsteps come thundering towards you, and without turning around to look, you run - not in any particular direction, just away. Animal instincts reign supreme here.

You run aimlessly and madly, splashing through the black rivers and dark mud, through the tall buggy grass and over the hard-packed dirt. The green eyeglass on your face is making weird noises, which is _exactly_ what you need right now - and suddenly, white labels spring up over things as you pass them. BALD CYPRESS, 120 FT, it labels a nearby tree. The screaming cloud of insects you sprint through are HISSING GNATTERS, NONPOISONOUS. You turn your head back as you run to look at your pursuers. 

They barely count as an alliance now, you guess, scarred and scraped and bitter as hell. The speed at which they soured as a team actually sort of impresses you - barely halfway through the third day and already - but that doesn't matter as much as the forest fire spreading through the trees behind them. If they're panicking, too, you could stand a chance hand-to-hand. You took out three careers at the same time, for God's sake - but then, that was the bloodbath. That was different. That was territorial, it was about survival...well, you guess this would be survival, too. A different kind of survival.

Maybe if you can get up a tree, you think, you could take them out from a low branch. No time for the blowdarts, but maybe a throwing knife -

Something hits you in the back, knocks you off your feet. You scream on instinct, fall forward, hit the ground hard. The body armor, you guess, protected you from under the pack, but that's not incredibly soothing when you're wrist-deep in mud and you've got three incoming. You don't have time to think, now. What do you have? The awl, at your belt. Right. Grab it, roll onto your side. You can't get on your back.

District 8 gets to you first, and you're ready for him, or at least, as ready as you can be when you're on your side, desperately scrambling to get up. He must've been the one who knocked you down with a javelin or something, because there's no weapon in his hand. He rams a knee into your stomach and you cough like you're going to vomit, wraps his fingers around your throat, pushes your head back. Instinct tells you to batter your hands desperately against his arms - you can hear the hooting calls from the other two, watching from a distance - but you feel the wooden handle of the awl in your right hand. Grab his hair with your left, pull his head to the side, and ram the metal pike straight into his neck.

He screeches and falls to the side, and you scramble out of your pack and onto your feet, grab the axe off the bag. The two stragglers, 3 and 7, stare at you for a second, size you up, covered in iodine and their teammate's blood and poisonous mud, device clipped to your head and axe in your hand, and apparently, make different decisions. The District 3 girl bolts like a rabbit - the boy from your district stares at you, hands shaking, and raises what appears to be a sword. In response, you raise an eyebrow. He's older than you, but he's weak. The only reason you hesitate now is that he's from home.

The boy at your feet is still spluttering, fingers clawing at his neck. You glance down, raise your axe, sever his head from his body. A cannon screams out overhead. District 7 charges.

Three throwing knives on your belt. The first one misses him just barely - he ducks out of the way - but the second one hits him near the clavicle and he cries out, drops his weapon, stumbles, falls to his knees. You pull your axe from the other boy's neck, swing it through the air threateningly. "You know I don't want to kill you," you say softly. It's as close to an apology as you can muster.

He nods silently. You think he is crying - your stomach flips uncomfortably. You hate when people cry. You hate this. This isn't survival. This isn't justifiable. He isn't trying to kill you. Your arms shake. "Fight back," you whisper, "do something."

There is screaming back towards the forest fire, and you look up because God, you wish you were doing anything else. The boy at your feet leaps up, sword in hand, and hits you in the ribcage with it. You stumble - his blow is unexpected, weak - and he gapes at your complete lack of blood. "Body armor," you say, and swing the axe at his neck. It slices cleanly. The cannon fires above you.

You return to your discarded bag, pull the javelin out of the back, and settle down on one knee next to it. The awl is probably too dirty to keep using, now. You've got a single throwing knife, your axe, a couple matches, a few more blowdarts, the iodine - god, you're so ready to use the iodine now - water, beef (?) jerky, your eyepiece...The eyepiece is some kind of technological wonder. Automatic IDer attached to your face. It's a little disorienting, since it only takes one eye into account, but totally useful. You wonder why the boy you took it from wasn't using it. Probably, like you, he didn't know what it was. You take the iodine from your bag, lean against a tree, roll up the legs of your suit, and carefully begin to rub iodine on the painfully reddened skin. It burns, but only in the way iodine always does. The agonizing burning sensation of the damaged skin begins to give way.

You just don't get it, though. The eyepiece said the gnats, though loud, were nonpoisonous, and your legs didn't have any bite marks on them. They were just red and inflamed and hurting badly. You drink heavily from your water pouch, dive into the strips of animal meat. God, you're so tired. The screaming from the direction of the forest fire ceased about half a minute ago, and the fire is spreading fast, now, but you can't force yourself to get up. Instead, your head sets against the trunk of the tree, and you grip your axe hard. You are so tired. You are so tired. You are so tired.

~~

You startle awake to the sound of a cannon and someone screaming your name. Your hand flies to your neck to find your token - you could've sworn that was Clint's voice - look around desperately. Scramble to your feet. Hours must've passed, because the sky is dark, and you can't smell the fire from any direction. You don't even know how many people are left in the arena. Disoriented, confused, you get to your feet, pat your hip - the one throwing knife remains - and grip your axe. Look for your bag. It's gone.

You consider swearing loudly, then think against it. Whoever took your bag also spared your life, and of the two, you know which one you'd rather have. Besides, you've got your eyepiece, too, and you already used the last of the iodine - other than the rest of the meat, there wasn't much left you could use. Above you, the first chords of the Capitol music begin to play, and you look up - but there's too much tree cover to see what's on the screen. You're fighting in the dark, now, figuratively and literally.

You make your way to the bog.

~~

While it drives you crazy how environmentally inaccurate the weeping willows are, they give some damn good cover. There has to be someone else in the area, someone who took your bag and knows you're still alive. Maybe they didn't try to kill you in your sleep because they were afraid you could still kill them. You hope so. It'd be a fine legacy to leave behind.

A dart hits you in the shoulder.

You wheel around, looking for the source. The girl from District 3 is perched on a branch a few yards away, frowning slightly, pipe in lips, bottle and new dart in hand. Your bag is on her back - another bag hangs from the furthest edge of the branch, maybe three feet away from her. It's bright orange, and you recognize it immediately. One of the perimeter bags from the beginning of the game. You passed right under it on your way out of the bog, made sure not to touch it. District 3 is doing the same thing now.

She readies her next blowdart. Probably aiming at your legs this time - no body armor there. Fine. Your fingers wrap around your last throwing knife, you breathe twice, and hurl it. She sees the knife coming, twists herself sideways off the branch - but you're not aiming at her, and besides which, you never miss.

The knife hits the bag, and the ensuing explosion wipes out the entire tree. You haul ass for cover, which is to say you throw yourself to the ground and cover your neck with your arms - which turns out to be a good idea, because an enormous splinter of wood hits your arm so hard it almost pierces the body armor, and your hand itself is filled with tiny bleeding spikes. The cannon sounds in the air. You stay where you are.

One more tribute left in the arena. You don't know if it's 5 or 6, but you have an axe with their face's name on it. Wait, no. You're gonna...put your _axe_ in their _face_ and...no, that's too forward. Shit. Okay. You definitely need some kind of snappy one-liner for the ultimate showdown of the games. Slowly, you uncurl yourself and get to your feet, take a look at your hands. You have a lot of experience with splinters, sure, but this is ridiculous. There’s blood everywhere, not the gushing, flowing blood of a significant wound but the tiny pinprick dots of splitting skin in a particularly dry winter.

You have to stop thinking about blood. It’s making you dizzy. Well. That or all the blood you’ve lost. Either one.

You approach the remains of the tree, hoping to find your pack, but the sight of the District 3 girl makes you recoil in disgust, stumble away. There’s nothing in the bag you want badly enough that you would touch the remains of that body. Instead, you turn away, seriously consider heaving, and gingerly lift your axe from where it fell. Clutch it in both hands. If you look to the bog, you can see the cornucopia, but you can’t see the survivor. If it’s the boy from 6, this could easily be a trap, him waiting for you to get in the clear. Your footfalls sink deep into the black mud, and your eyes cast down to the murky water before you.

The eyepiece beeps, trills, spins. Then, as you stare into the dark, sloshing waves, sparkling reflections of the Capitol-made stars overhead, it blinks out HYDROFLUORIC ACID, POISONOUS.

Oh, Jesus.

You take high-kneed steps out of the mud, like getting your feet as far away from the ground will halt the damage already done, swivel your head back and forth looking for a path to the cornucopia that could keep you out of the acid. 

“I’ve been waiting for you. You could do me a favor and hurry this up.”

You swivel your head towards the noise, towards the figure standing in the dark on the island. Halfway across the bog, the District 5 tribute is twirling a spear like a baton. Your fingers clench around the axe instinctively, but you force your shoulders to relax. Make her underestimate you before you strike, but not too much - she knows you’re alive for a reason. “Did you start the first forest fire?” You ask. You’re genuinely curious.

She nods amiably. “Did you start the second one?”

You shrug. Your face is tempted to smile, but you do not. “What can I say? I was inspired.”

“I knew it would be down to the two of us eventually,” she goes on, like she’s been preparing a speech (lord knows you would’ve), “we’re two halves of a whole. You have the top half of the body armor, I have the bottom. You took the north side of the stadium, I took the south.” She sets her head to the side. “I wish we could’ve been friends, Natasha.”

“Maybe in another life we were,” you say softly, but you’re looking around the bog. There are stones in the water, protruding out, that you could step on. You could get to her without getting in the water again, maybe. Water. Acid. Whatever. “A better life.”

You hear two gentle splashes, glance up to see her standing knee deep. It’s weird - knowing what the “water” is now, you half expect to see it bubble or fizzle or burn or _something_ when she steps into it, but nothing happens. “Too bad we only have this one,” she says, then smiles. “Come on out, the water’s fine.”

You shake your head mutely. Play scared.

“I don’t want to have to come get you,” she says, evenly. “Only one of us is leaving this stadium, District 7. We may as well find out who’s going home now.”

“You’re more confident in yourself than I am,” you try. She’s got something up her sleeve, and you’re not willing to stick around and find out what it is. You need her on your turf, under the tree cover. Maybe, if you run, she’ll follow.

“Stop sidestepping like you’re going to dart any second,” she snaps, “I’m not stupid. I’m not going to follow you.”

Oh well. So much for that.

“Listen,” she says, “I’ll make this easy. You come to the cornucopia. I kill you on fair grounds.” Definitely a trick. District 5 isn’t even trying. “Come on. There’s a rock path and everything over there.” She motions at the rocks you were eyeing with your spear. “Do what you want,” she says, “you know where to find me.”

She turns around. You feel the axe in your hands. She’s not too far now, and she’s completely unguarded. It’s not much of a throwing weapon - it’s not aerodynamic at all, not like the first axe, and you’re not sure how your aim would be like this - but it’s really your best shot at this point. Whatever’s on the island is a trap, and without your pack, you can’t rely on your food-finding abilities. You were always terrible at that. She steps onto the island, struggling with the mud.

You swing back


	5. Pepper Potts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 57th Annual Hunger Games.

You’re seventeen today. For your birthday, your tribute works together to get you a creeping, blackening sense of dread, a manicure, a hot collection of nightmares, a beautiful necklace, certain death.

You were born on the reaping day. Your mother has always called you cursed because of it when you turn your back, like you can’t hear her smudging the memory of you. Maybe she loves you - maybe she’s scared for you. Maybe she’s just scared for herself. When you were born, a streak of black ash was painted across your forehead, left there until your skin sweated it off naturally. She tells you she can still see the imprint sometimes. She tells you many things you wish you did not know. Every year before this one, you have returned from the reaping, and she tells you, happy birthday, your present is life. But she cannot say that, this time.

You are seventeen today. You will be seventeen when you die.

Your mother looks at you with contempt at this, the last time you see her. “I knew this would happen one year,” she tells you, practically spits at you. You nod dumbly. You have learned the art of letting her think whatever she wants - you are “obedient” because it makes her easier to manipulate. She is so simple. “Happy birthday, Pepper,” she says quietly, “your present is life.” She slides something hard and metal over the table to you.

“You owe it to this district to win,” your father says. He has never been as harsh as your mother, but he is more passive. He helps you put the necklace on. You don’t care about District 8, to be honest. You think you owe victory to yourself. But you don’t say this out loud - you just look noble and nod, as though a weighty baton has been passed to you, and now you must carry it to the finish.

Even if you survive, you will never see either of them again. You decided this long ago. Your life will forever be in your hands from now on. From your seat on the train, the world streaming past you, you harden yourself from the core out. There is no time, no space in your mind, for fear, for hopelessness. Black terror tries to swallow your heart, but your resolve rips it away, and you devour it. If it tries again, you will murder it with your bare hands.

You’re not a violent person. Really, you’re not. You’ve never hurt anyone - not physically, anyway. You’re small - people call you fragile. There’s no reason to get buff in District 8, textiles are just a matter of weaving and designing. Delicacy is an art. In the games, it might get you killed. You can’t win the games with strength of your arms - but maybe you can do it with the sharpness of your tongue.

~~

Observant. That’s what you are. You watch the other tributes in the training area, trying to stay out of their way, analyze. You were always good at analysis.

As per usual, the careers are the strongest, the most talented with straight-up weaponry, but their survival skills seem weak. None of them can climb the ropes without slipping or falling, and every one of them fails the poisonous berries and roots test. They’re vain, too - strutting peacocks, unwilling to extend their allegiance to anyone outside the career circle. It almost makes you smile. Nothing has ever been so easy before.

You’re alone in the elevator with the boy from District 2 the first time. “I can’t understand why anyone would team up with the District 4 tributes,” you say casually, picking at a hangnail. You know he already has.

“It’d be better than teaming up with District 8,” he snaps back. You pretend to flinch. “At least they’re _competent_.”

“Yeah, that’s why I wouldn’t want to work with them,” you start again, “listen, just between the two of us, I’ve overheard them talking about their plan to win.” No, you haven’t. You’ve heard the District 2s. But that’s not an important distinction. “They’re backstabbers. And, like you said, they’re competent. I don’t need to get murdered in my sleep.”

The door to your floor opens, and you slide out without another word. You don’t bother to look back.

~~

The District 7s are genuinely scary. They pass the rope challenges with no effort at all, do fairly well hand-to-hand, and crush the survival tests under their feet. So when the girl approaches you, you don’t really know what to do.

“You’re Pepper, right?” She says.

“Um, yes,” you reply, “can I help you with something?”

She’s chewing on something. “How do you feel,” she says around it, “about working with me in the games?”

“An alliance?” She nods. “Do you have anyone else?”

“Jay from District 3,” she says, leaning on her axe, “Sorbee from 5. You, me. I’m thinking about that boy from 11 - what’s his name?”

“Orbit,” you supply helpfully. You made an effort to learn the names of everyone you’re afraid of. Orbit is huge, not to mention dangerously clever. You’d put money on him as a victor, if you weren’t so determined to win yourself.

“Right, Orbit,” she repeats after you, “so? How’d that be, huh?”

This is a trap. You can feel it in your bones. “They’re all fighters,” you say, “why would you need me?”

“We need a brain,” she says, and holds out her hand.

They need an easy kill if everything goes wrong.

You take it.

~~

Sorbee, District 5, is absolutely killer with a bow. You watch her aim, again and again, at the various moving targets, hit every time, spin and turn with the grace of the wind. When she finishes the simulation, you clap as politely as you can. “Wow, District 7 was wrong,” you say, “that’s the best shooting I’ve seen in a long time.”

The girl eyes you narrowly, water bottle in hand. “Yvin?” She asks. “What did she say, exactly?”

You falter. “Um, she…” you wave a hand. “Never mind what she said. That was, I mean, that was spectacular, I - “

“ _What did she say_ , Pepper?” Sorbee says, cutting you off and glaring now. Exactly as planned. You throw a nervous glance over your shoulder, in the direction of Yvin, even now practicing with her axe.

“I…not here,” you whisper, “she didn’t want you to know.”

You tell her in the bathroom. Tell her that Yvin wanted an easy kill in the group, that she’d singled Sorbee out as generally defenseless. Sorbee’s face goes red and hot, and you twist your own into something sympathetic and embarrassed. She chugs her entire water bottle, breathes hard out of her nose.

“I knew it,” she says finally, “she wants us to turn against each other. She thinks she’s so fucking tough. I wonder how she thinks she’ll fare against all of us together.” She stares at your startled face. “You’re too honest, Pepper,” she says, “it’s going to get you killed.”

~~

It’s so easy, once you’ve planned everything out, once you’ve watched them all interact. It’s like…it’s like herding sheep. If sheep were petty and jealous and scared for their lives.

“I heard her say she wanted to turn her teammates against each other.”

“She’s only pretending to be weak. You can tell. She’s going for the nocturnal route.”

“He told me he was only working with you because he thinks the rest of your team wants you dead as badly as he does. Watch out.”

“I think she likes you. You should see if she’ll help you out.”

“Just between you and me? I don’t think she’s told a single truth since she got here.”

“The boy from my district? He’s weak. I don’t want to kill him myself, though. You know how it is with ones from home. If you go for him for me, I can set up something for you.”

“It’s just good business. If I were as strong as him, I’d go for the career pack first, too.”

“We have to stick together. We’re from the same District. We can’t team up officially or anything, but we can talk about our alliances, can’t we? What’s yours like?”

The fights start breaking out during practice maybe three days in. The first alliance breaks up on the fifth day. Stragglers start trying to force themselves into new groups. By the sixth day, you don’t have to say anything to anyone. They’re destroying themselves, and thanking you for it - other tributes approach you with appeals to your knowledge, with gratitude, sometimes with gifts. The boy from District 1 gives you an emerald ring. You have no idea where he got it, but you’re not turning it down.

You have no skill to present to the judges when the day comes. You can’t throw knives or climb ropes or shoot an arrow or paint. There’s no test for interpersonal manipulation. You lay a half-hearted tripwire trap, but your score is low regardless. Which means your only chance for survival is to steal the heart of the Capitol with your, uh, stunning personality. Caesar doesn’t make it hard. He smiles and jokes with you, and you beam, and look as pretty as possible, and touch your hair shyly. “Oh, I think we’re all getting along wonderfully,” you say, “it’s going to be so sad tomorrow. I’ve become very close with everyone else here.” Your smile is charming and pearly, your dress is black and sparkling, the necklace from home hangs like a noose from your neck.

Hours later, when you’re still scrubbing makeup off your face, there’s a knock on the door, and your escort comes darting in. “Pepper,” she hisses, like it’s an illicit secret, “there’s a visitor here for you.”

You recognize him as soon as you see his face. Anyone who owned a television would. He looks so much older in person, like he’s…well, like an actual _person_ would look. You remember, suddenly, that he’s almost 30. “Yes, sir?” You say, keeping an air of politeness around you as you shut the door behind you, “is there something I can do for you?”

“Nah, just a question I want answered,” he says, waving the metal hand in front of him casually, “how’d you get my tributes to eat each other alive?”

You glance back to the door, then around the empty hallway. Suddenly, you feel very trapped. “I’m sorry, what?” You ask, the air sucked out of your lungs. You feel like you have to catch your breath.

He shrugs. “Yeah, how’d you split ‘em up?” He asks. “I mean, they were practically seamed together when they first got here. Walking in unison like a human centipede. Or, like, the creepiest marching band members this side of Twin Peaks.” He glances at you. “Oh, right, you’re…from the Districts. Nevermind anything I just said. It’s Capitol stuff. Point is, my tributes are at each other’s necks, and I wanna know how you did it.”

“I didn’t do anything. What could I have done?” Being indignant might work. You cross your arms in front of your chest.

“Yeah, that’s what I wanna know.” He mimics the action, leans against the wall. “C’mon. I’m not even mad. I’m impressed.”

You stare at him. Size him up. You don’t want to lie to him, you realize. You don’t want the last thing you’re remembered for to be your ability to lie. “They were vain and shallow,” you say at last, “people like that will believe anything that makes them feel more important.” Specifically, you told both of them that the other one was so scared of them, they were launching an assassination plot of some kind. Easiest way to break up a budding friendship.

He nods sagely. “You’re scary as hell, kid,” he says, “if we were in the same game, you would’ve killed me faster than I could blink.”

“How did you know it was me? That turned them on each other.”

“Lucky guess.” He shrugs. “They hate each other, and they absolutely love you. It was pretty easy to follow the trail. Plus, I’ve been watching you.” He taps his temple with a finger. “The thinkers are usually the ones who live. I’m betting on you, kid.”

You feel your shoulders loosen. “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

“That’ll be all, Ms. Potts.”

~~

The Capitol doesn’t like you much, it turns out - your smile isn’t charming enough, or your arms aren’t freckled enough, or whatever it is that they care about up there. But it turns out that the favor of the Capitol isn’t as life-and-death as the favor of every other tribute in the ring. On the first day, Sorbee carries you to cover and passes you one of the better bags. On the third day, one of the District 4s finds you out in the tundra, shows you how to make a fort out of snow to stave off the cold. On the seventh day, Orbit kills three other tributes and spares you. On the nineteenth day, it’s just you and the girl from 9. She doesn’t expect you to slit her throat. But then, you don’t care about expectations.

All your plans went off without a hitch. Sorbee and Yvin absolutely shredded each other before the first week was up. The careers devoured each other. You only ever had to kill two people - everyone else killed each other for you. You like to think of it that way, anyway, or you have trouble sleeping.

You can’t stand the cold anymore. As soon as fall comes, you wrap up in furs and blankets and go into hibernation. Cold winds rattle you to your bones, bring back that black gnawing fear, and you are too weak to rip it away now.

Four years later, Tony tells you that the emerald ring was from him. You tell him you wear it to remember the games. He suggests that you throw it down a well. “There’s no reason to remember the games,” he says, lying on your couch, “us victors practice forgetting, Pepper, there’s nothing worth being remembered.”

“Maybe,” you say, and pull the blankets closer to yourself. The wind rips at the windows of the center, and just the sound hurts to listen to. Thank god there’s a record playing over it. You can’t stand winter. Not the temperature, not the noise, not the drifting, perfect heaves of snow. It makes you want to vomit. “But it’s a good reminder. It makes me want to protect my wards and…I don’t know. It’s very nice, though,” you add, nodding convincingly, “very nice. Thank you for giving it to me.”

“You’re very welcome, miss Potts,” he says deliberately, “and if you ever change your mind and want it melted down, just let me know.” He stares out towards the windows - or, more specifically, the curtains drawn thick over the windows. “So how do you feel about the tribute? Good win with him, by the way.”

“I think Coulson’s going to be just fine,” you say, carefully. “He’s got his head right on his shoulders.”

Ten years later, he asks you to marry him. You tell him you’ll think about it.


	6. Peggy Carter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 54th Annual Hunger Games.

District 12 has only ever had one victor. Years ago - what, twenty-nine years ago? Long before _you_ were born - the first victor of the District rose out of the ashes of the coal mines in the first quarter quell. Everyone in District 12 knows Steve Rogers. His portrait is hung on every street corner, in every window of the stores and shops that populate some of the nicer city terrain, in every classroom, in every miner’s workstation, in the mayor’s office, in the post office, in your home. When you were little, you told every teacher you had that you wanted to be the next Steve Rogers. Without fail, they told you it would really just be better if you wanted to marry Steve Rogers, like all the other little girls, and to stop hitting the boys with sticks, Peggy, that’s not how we play with the other kids. You never understood why the boys were allowed to pull your hair and you weren’t allowed to hit them with a sizable piece of wood back, but they were, and you weren’t, and those were the rules of school.

You didn’t stop hitting the boys with sticks, understand. You just got sneakier about it.

But there’s no Steve Rogers who comes after Steve Rogers. One victor who hasn’t come home in more than twenty-five years is the only thing your district has going for it. Your best friend’s little brother says to you, once, that Steve Rogers probably isn’t even real, that the Capitol probably made him up to give District 12 hope where there was none. You punch him in the face. You don’t care that you’re ten and he’s eight. Maybe you’re so angry because it’s the quarter quell, because four of your friends were summoned onto the reaping platform instead of just two. You want to believe that Steve Rogers, who _will be their mentor_ , will fix everything. You want to believe that one of them will _live_.

They don’t. Not a single one of them.

When Tony Stark graces the reaping platform of District 12, you are ten years old, and you want him dead. He does not deserve this, you think. Strats or Yinsen or Balto or Feuge deserved this. Not him, not with his career pack face, not with his fake arm, not with the way he shakes under the gaze of your entire district. You almost want him to break down. You want him to cry. When he looks out over the crowd to the pedestals, you think he almost does. His real arm shakes. The metal one stays fixed in place.

But you don’t lose faith. At least, not until your own reaping. Not until you’re fourteen and scared, legs bloodless and tingling, and your name rings out of a smile that spreads up and down rather than wide, teeth and gums relishing the sound of your death sentence. But you stand on your own, walk on your own, slowly, eyes wide, face white. You stand on the stage next to Ms. Williams, feel your stomach sink lower as the boy who’s called is even younger than you.

It’s not so much fear as it is…inevitability, you guess. You have never been so afraid that you stopped caring about things. Now, you mostly just feel…hungry. And curious. “Steve Rogers is our mentor, right?” You ask your Escort, trailing her up and down the train, “when are we going to meet him? Is he still alive, even? Why hasn’t he come back to the District? Were you his escort, too?” The last one doesn’t seem like a rude question until you ask it. But hey, she is pretty old.

“You will meet your mentor tomorrow morning,” Ms. Williams snaps, “until then, please hold back on your questions. Oh, and Miss Carter,” she adds, throwing the comment over her shoulder, “be prepared for the worst. High expectations are the truest cause of disappointment, you know.”

~~

He’s not like in the pictures at all. You resist the temptation to let your last sliver of hope float away, and stare down at your breakfast hard. You think about anything other than the man in front of you, probably forty-some years old, thin, wispy, leaning hard on a cane like his life depends on it. Loca, the boy tribute, spits in something that might be terror and is supposed to be anger, immediately tries to fight. You stare hard at your egg. You’ve never had an egg before. You’re not even sure how you’re supposed to eat it. It’s going everywhere on your plate.

“ _You’re_ Steve Rogers?”

Your mouth is so full of egg. You glance up at the shriveled form, catch his eye, look down again. Wait, tentatively, for an answer.

“Yes,” he says, and your stomach clenches like a fist, “I’m Steve Rogers.”

“You don’t _look_ like Steve Rogers.”

“I hate to break it to you, champ, but the ‘Steve Rogers’ you’re thinking of doesn’t _exist_.” The voice is harsh, dry. It’s as angry as Loca’s, but it’s a colder anger, softened and sweetened and fermented over years of bullshit. You recognize that tone of voice. You’d recognize it anywhere. “He’s propaganda that the Capitol made up. I’m the only real Steve Rogers, and I look exactly like I look.”

You break eye contact with your egg to stare at him, and he looks back. His eyes are violently blue, the kind of blue you read about eyes being in penny novelettes, and they run you through like a javelin in the chest. You don’t break contact, this time. You watch him like a hawk. He _is_ Steve Rogers. And he’s…tiny.

“Then who _really_ won the first quarter quell?” Loca snaps, and Steve’s head swivels back to him. The moment is lost. You shovel the remains of your egg into your mouth while he’s not looking.

“Me,” he sighs. You wonder if he needs help with his chair.

Loca explodes. He’s only twelve. Twelve year olds are notoriously bad at controlling their emotions. You remember being twelve with no fondness, yourself. “Bullshit!” He hits the table on his way out of his chair. “There’s no _way_ you could’ve won it, you’re bullshitting us! Look at you!” You wipe your mouth and chin with a napkin and glance between the two, Loca red-faced and ready to blow, Steve tired and apparently completely bored. “You’re, you’re tiny, my _grandmom_ could beat _you_ up!”

Steve sighs. “I have no doubt. Now, are you going to finish your breakfast or not?”

Loca shrieks, storms out of the train car, and the old man carefully lowers himself into his chair, reaches for his coffee. You watch him carefully. You need to think. And to think, you need to eat. It’s quiet for a minute, and then, delicately, you ask, “may I have another egg, please?”

He startles, blinks like he forgot you were still there. Sighs, shrugs, waves a hand at the table. “Help yourself. The Capitol’s got no shortage.”

You do. You have at least three eggs, because you’ve never had an egg before but today you found out that you really like eggs, try to retain some semblance of dignity as you plow through them, and think hard. Steve Rogers _is_ real. He’s sitting directly to your right, drinking coffee and pretending to read the newspaper. But you’ve seen photographs of Steve Rogers. When he was young, he was…broad-shouldered. It’s like his entire bone structure’s been changed. You wonder, something sick creeping into your stomach, what exactly the Capitol did to him. Unless…he isn’t Steve Rogers. Or maybe he’s a different…or…

You stare up at him. “You _are_ Steve Rogers, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Like the one in all the pictures and on the posters and everything?” Maybe the other Steve Rogers is like a…a model, you think to yourself, like a model that they dressed up to be him.

“Yes.” The sinking feeling in your stomach again. They did something to him.

“How come you looked so much bigger when they took the pictures, and you’re so much smaller now?” You don’t care how stupid it sounds. You’re retroactively scared for him. “Did something happen?”

He smiles, but it’s a flat, tired smile. “No,” he says, and your stomach loosens it’s agonizing grip, “nothing happened.” He shrugs. “But I was never that big guy. I’ve always been this small.”

Fuck. Every time understanding is just within your grasp, it’s torn away. You stare at him, hard, stare at your egg. “So how come you look so big in those pictures and things?” You look at him again. He raises an eyebrow. You think he’s…amused. “I mean,” you say, waving a hand in front of yourself, “I understand how in the _drawings and paintings_ they could just draw you with more muscles and, and things, but there’s _photographs_ ,” you emphasize, “and you look big in _those_ , too.”

He shakes his head, looks off to the wall, turns his gaze back on you. “Photographs can be fixed, the Capitol has technology _designed_ to fix photographs. To change the way things look.”

Of course, you realize, and instantly feel stupid. Of course it’s all edited. How gullible were you? Ugh, you feel so…

But he still won.

The thought shoots through your brain like lightning, and all of a sudden, you’re thinking again. Okay, sure, he’s scrawny and weak and he looks like he’d fall over if you pushed him, but he _won_. You’re not even as tiny as he is, but you are pretty small, and that means that if he could win…so could you. You could _survive_. He could teach you. You stare up at him, breathe in deep. “So how did you win? I mean, no offense,” you add quickly, in case he was, uh, sensitive about the muscles thing, “and obviously, you’re not who you were when you were eighteen, but I don’t think you beat the games with brute force or anything. So…” you shrug, helplessly, stare at him like a lifeline, “how did you do it?”

To his credit, Rogers looks startled. He blinks, like he didn’t expect anything important to come out of your mouth, shakes his head like he’s trying to wave your question off. “Luck, I guess. I don’t know.” He’s lying. You can tell he’s lying, and something in your stomach gets hot and angry. “It was a long time ago, and no tributes between then and now have ever listened to my advice before.”

Why the fuck is he holding out on you? ‘Doesn’t remember’? Bullshit. “I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you forget,” you snap, and lean forward across the table. “I know I haven’t got much of a chance, Steve, but I bet you didn’t have much either, and _I don’t want to die_.”

He stares down at you. And he sighs.

And he teaches you.

~~

He asks you what you’re good at. You aren’t sure, at first, but you find out fast - your aim is killer with a bow and a slingshot, and you’re faster than the other tributes, and your pain tolerance is through the roof. And you learn quickly, picking up skills at a rocket pace. You learn how to climb the ropes, and you get good at poison identification. You tell Steve over dinner, and he nods approvingly, pushes food towards you. He tells you he’s worried about how skinny you are. You tell him you’re more worried about how skinny _he_ is. He snorts a repressed laugh, and you take a moment to be impressed with yourself. You’d never even seen him smile before.

He teaches you to be underestimated, to play like you’re too weak to be a threat and to hide far from the cornucopia. As long as you know what you can and can’t eat in the stadium, he tells you, you can pretty much survive several weeks while everyone else tries to kill each other. To avoid contact with other players for as long as possible. To be as completely self-reliant as possible. To be well-liked.

You never really bother with being well-liked. One of the boys from the upper districts “compliments” your backside on the first day, and you treat him to a personal interview with your knuckles. The trainers think it’s hilarious, but none of the other tributes do, and they leave you with entirely too much personal space. So straight off, you fail at being underestimated and being nice, which gives you a heavy sigh and a face palm from your mentor. He tells you to at least be well-liked by the Capitol and garner _their_ favor, if no one else’s. You prepare for the interview.

Caesar is so toothy and friendly, you’re almost afraid of him - but you’ve also never felt so beautiful in your life. In District 12, everything you wear is brown or grey. Here, your dress is black and gold and red, your face sculpted and shaped into something unnatural and doll-like, your hair falling perfectly around you. The attention is so intensive, thousands of people there just to see you, and maybe it goes to your head and maybe you get a little ahead of yourself and maybe you boast. “I know that District 12 has a history of…of failure,” you say, staring out and above the crowds, “I know that people assume we’ll lose by default. I know that…that we haven’t got much of a chance, either of us.”

“No, don’t say that,” Caesar starts, but you cut him off.

“But I don’t care whether I’ve got a chance or not,” you say, and the microphone’s back in your face, “I don’t care about the history of my district. I’m not going to lose. There’s too much riding on this.” Silence. You stare out. “Thirty years we’ve gone without a victor,” you say, “thirty years too long. I owe it to my District.” You look at Caesar. “And I owe it to myself.”

When you get off stage, you think Steve is going to slap you. “What did I say,” he starts, slowly, “about being underestimated?”

“That it’s a weapon on it’s own,” you mumble, downcast. “Look, Steve, I’m sorry, but I already punched someone, it’s not like talking big is going to push the tributes one way or another on me -“

“I was wrong,” he says, and you practically spit.

“What?”

“The Capitol loves you,” he says, and rests a hand on your shoulder, “everyone loves an underdog. I don’t think anyone’s going to _bet_ on you, but everyone really likes your spirit. And you didn’t get camera shy, that’s good, and you had good posture.” You give him a blank stare. “It sounds stupid, I know, but it matters to some people,” he adds, shrugging, “subconsciously, I mean.” He looks at you, that bright, intense stare burning through you, and you stare back. He smiles, looks at the ground. His hand slides off your shoulder. “Yeah. You’re gonna be alright, Carter,” he says, smiling, and under all the makeup, you can feel yourself blush with pride.

~~

But tomorrow always comes, and with it, the fear of death strong in your heart.

“I’m going to die,” you say, as steadily as you can, as Steve taps a finger on his cane and sizes you up.

“You have as good a chance of surviving as anyone else in that arena,” he snaps, but you’re not sure he believes it. “Come on. District 12 needs you to win. _I_ need you to win,” he adds, and his voice softens. His hand moves awkwardly at your arm, rests on your bicep uncomfortably, and you can’t help but smile. And then you feel your face fall again.

“What do I do?” You stare up at him. “What do I do if I die alone? What do I say? Who do I pray to?”

He drops his eyes to the floor, sighs, looks back up at you, intensity of his gaze burning through your skull. “You won’t be alone,” he says, with finality. “Peggy Carter, you are not a fragile flower of a girl with pretty hair and pretty eyes. You are a fucking _dragon_. The arena is yours to take. Light that bitch on fire.”

Behind you, the countdown begins. Your stomach twists, and you stare down at your hands, at the thin rope bracelet you were allowed to wear into the stadium, back up at him. Smile. “I intend to,” you say. “When I was a kid, I always wanted to be the next Steve Rogers.”

He smiles, shakes his head. “You don’t need to be the next Steve Rogers,” he says, “you’re going to be the first Peggy Carter.”

~~

It’s a mountain biome. Fine. You grew up in District 12 - you know mountains. Steve’s advice rings harsh in your ears, and instead of running for the cornucopia, you run for cover, hide just out of sight - when a boy runs past with a bag and a machete, you lunge onto his back, choke him to death with your bare hands, loot the body, run. Which, okay, isn’t _exactly_ what Steve told you to do, but look, if you did everything the way Steve did it, you might not survive. His game was a quarter quell, after all. They do things differently in those.

You hike out as far as you can towards the edge of the map, stake out in a cave. It hasn’t got much, but there’s a freshwater spring and only one direction for enemies to be coming from, which makes it about as safe as any camping spot is going to get.

You don’t, uh, you don’t expect the mountain goats. The shockingly violent, territorial mountain goats. You like goats, but these aren’t real animals - at least, that’s what you tell yourself when you set their wool on fire and send them running after getting rammed in the hip. 

The next day, there are more goats. That night, there are lions. The day after that, wounded, tired, you collect up as much water as you can and move on. The Capitol is trying to move you - maybe you’re too close to the edge of the map, because the day after _that_ , there’s an avalanche. You get up in a tree and live - barely - and loot the bodies you find crushed between the boulders. There’s a bow among them. Slowly, your chances of survival tick up.

Your shoulder hurts too much to shoot properly, still throbbing from lion claws. It’s not technically a lion, you think to yourself, barely pulling yourself up a tree, it’s a cougar. But it might as well be your death sentence. You’re sure it can smell your blood, and now, with the paranoia that’s starting to set in, the way you twitch every time you hear a rock skid or a distant braying, you’re sure you’re going to die.

Help comes silently on a parachute, a tin of soup and a box of matches. _Don’t give up yet, Dragon. There’s only ten more in the arena. -S_

You eat your soup, and look at the tin and its parachute, and down to the ground around your tree. Poisonous fruit lies abundant beyond your feet. You look back to the parachute, and wonder if any of the other tributes like berries.

Five of them fall for it. _Five_. You didn’t even leave a fake note. Nightshade kills in seconds, so you’re screwed when you hit the group of three, but at that point, you’re desperate, and you shoot the other two with an arrow point-blank. It is _so easy_ it makes you shake. You don’t even realize they were the last ones in the stadium until you hear music blaring over you, and there are lights, and you drop your bow and clutch at your shoulder. You will never make this go away, you realize, staring at the corpses in front of you. You will never forget this.

You are ashamed.

~~

You’re alive - that should be good enough, shouldn’t it, you come home alive and the District finally has two victors to its name. But you come home alone, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like it’s worth it. You ask Steve to come with you, to show the District that he’s real and to out the Capitol on their fixing schemes, but he just sighs and shakes his head, like you’re a child who will one day understand why all things die. He wants to protect you from the world, you think. You hate to tell him he’s already failed.

There is no safety for you anymore. The sound of gravel crunching under foot sends you scrambling for cover, the distant sound of animals mating in the night wakes you in sweat and panic. You are lucky enough not to dream, most nights, because you barely sleep. You will never feel safe again. You walk on pins.

When you get older, you begin to see why Steve avoided giving you advice. You teach your tributes as best as you can, show them how to win as best you can. They go to the arena. They die. Sometimes they die in the first hour, sometimes on the last day, but always, always, they die. You are racked with guilt, with grief. Steve tells you, gently, to give up on them. You tell him your District deserves better than that. That it deserves better than you. He tells you no one deserves better than you, that you are the greatest thing the District could ask for, that you are the dragon the Capitol should be afraid of. You wish you could believe him.

He tells you, on your nineteenth birthday, that you remind him of a boy he once loved, and you do not know what to say. So you say nothing, and drink to forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! I didn't want to leave a lot of author's notes on this fic, but I have to admit I'm really flattered (and a little blown away) by the positive support and response I've gotten on HITPWILY. Thank you so much for reading - it means a lot to me.
> 
> The next chapter's going to be a big one, so that update will probably come a lot slower than usual. I just ask for your patience - I'll be working on it as fast as I can. Thank you so much, and I hope Peggy's chapter was up to par for you.


	7. Tony Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 50th Annual Hunger Games. The Second Quarter Quell.

You’re not scared, not really. The Hunger Games were always part of the plan for you. Short of endangering your life, there’s nothing you can think of to show your father that you’re worthy of respect. He certainly hasn’t figured that out yet.

The quarter quell threw a wrench in things.

Look, you had plans, alright? You had big plans. You’ve spent your life putting together these plans. When you were nine years old, you built yourself a set of limbs that would work better than the ones you were born with. You threw out most of your own body for the chance to win. Which makes sense to you - if you win, it’ll all have been worth it, and if you die - well, you’ll be dead. You won’t exactly be able to regret it. But you never doubted your survival. Goddammit, you are Howard Stark’s son. If he could survive the games, so can you. You’re eighteen. You’re ready. And the quarter quell and president Snow and the fucking Capitol has to ruin _everything_. 

Four tributes from each district, he says. There’s panic across District 1, the panic of the comfortable who have been unsettled. For the past couple of decades - hell, as far back as your father himself - the tributes from District 1 have always volunteered, and everyone’s known who’s volunteering months in advance. Everyone knew you were going to be the male tribute, everyone knew you were willing to fight in a quarter quell no matter what the rules, and everyone else backed the hell off. You are ready for this, the girl Nephtet is ready for this, no one else in the district was. Still, there is no reason for you to be scared. You are exactly as prepared as you always have been, and when the grinning escort onstage reaches for the boy’s bowl, you volunteer, stern and loud, metal arm raised in the air. The way you’ve been practicing. But you cannot save the other two with your sacrifice.

You miss the girl’s name - Sharp, or something - eyes boggling and zoning out under the weight and intensity of your entire district’s gaze. Howard Stark’s boy, standing on his half of the podium alone, mostly composed of a gold-titanium alloy and suddenly feeling scared, like maybe you should back out now. The boy’s name is called. Edwin Jarvis, she says, calling it like a proud trumpet, and there’s a long silence and a sick feeling. The boy stands, slowly. He is thin. Young. Maybe thirteen or fourteen, pale, freckled, and now hollow-eyed as his death sentence rings over the stadium like a gong. You do not look at him as he comes to stand behind you, his head barely as high as your shoulder. You stare straight forward and look at nothing at all.

In your nightmares, years from now, you will watch him stand and stare at you, mouth limp and eyes desperate. He will stand and stare and try to tell you something, but you are never able to make out the words.

~~

It’s not like you’ve changed your mind or anything, though. You still want to live, and you don’t care how baby faced and terrified the unintentional tributes look, you’re not going to help them out if it’ll endanger your survival. You gave an arm and two legs for the chance to win - literally - and you’re not giving up your sacrifice.

Your father died two nights ago. There is no time to mourn, nor do you want to. You will not be Howard Stark’s Boy when you win. He can be Tony Stark’s Father. This victory belongs to you.

The problem with the boy is how pitiable he always looks. Jarvis is terrible with weapons, and even though he does pretty well with the survival skills tests, you know the other tributes smell blood in the water. He’s from _your district_ , dammit, no one looks down on District 1. And as you watch him struggle with target practice, you realize that you can’t just let him _die_ , your own survival or no. God, he needs a fighting chance at _least_. “Aim a little up,” you say, arms crossed and leaning as casually against a wall as you can, “gravity exists, especially for a far throw. You dig it?”

Jarvis loosens his pull on the string to turn and stare at you, confused, bow pointed down. Well, he looks confused. The kid’s kind of impossible to read - his face is never doing the same thing his brain is, maybe. “This is a bow,” he says, slowly, “I don’t think I can dig anything with it.”

“Wh- no, it’s an expression,” you say, not sure if you should be backpedaling, “it’s just, like, do you get it. Just - just shoot the arrow above the target.”

He frowns at you placidly, then turns back to the target and raises the bow. Draws back. Lets fly. It hits solidly above the bullseye, but it’s closer than the furthest ring, where past arrows have been hanging.

“Nice,” you say, “kinda lower. Try again.”

~~

He’s fifteen, it turns out, even if he looks young. Hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, he thinks. The two of you have to share a room, and, to be civil, make a pact to switch who gets to sleep in the bed every other night. You find out later that the girls just share the bed - it’s a king, after all - but like, come on. It’s _different_ for girls. Whatever. The point is, sharing a room gives way to staying up late and talking about nothing for no reason. You don’t intend to get attached to Jarvis, or anything, but that doesn’t mean you can’t talk until 3 in the morning with him. You have a week until you might die for sure, and if you _do_ die, there are things you want _someone_ to know. Even if that someone is a skinny, freckled fifteen year old who’s even more likely to die than you.

You tell him about your dad, about your first girlfriend, about the stack of hidden CDs you keep under your bed at home, about the one-legged cat that always manages to find its way onto the roof outside your window. He tells you about his favorite book, and everything you could possibly want to know about the railway system, the boy he had a crush on. He tells you he’s never been kissed. You tell him he’s not missing much, but you are lying. Kissing is incredible.

His aim gets better. He’s a fast runner, too. You wonder how long he’ll last.

The Capitol loves you, from the legacy your father left to your dedication to the cause. They call you the Iron Man, presumably because of the, uh, Definitely-Not-Iron limbs you sport as proudly as you can. You make a point to always wave with the metal arm, to stand so it’ll catch the light. The idea of cutting off your legs and replacing them with prosthetic ones races through the Capitol as massively popular. You aren’t surprised - with the cosmetic surgeries they willingly go through, robot limbs probably seem pretty tame. Three days into your training, you meet a woman with satyr legs who says she was inspired by you, and you pretend to think this is flattering instead of horrifying. You’re very good at talking to people. Your mentor, Obadiah, nods in approval whenever you walk away from a conversation, and Nephtet glowers at you enviously. Like you, she is used to being well-liked. Neither of you take well to being the second-most popular person in a room.

The interviews are the second most important thing coming up, and you prepare for them like they’re the only important thing in your life - which, well, they kind of are. You stand in front of the mirror for hours, saying the same lines over and over again, lines you’ve written to stroke the Capitol’s ego and their bloodlust. “My old man had a saying: ‘peace is having a bigger stick than the other guy’. So I ask you. Is it better to be feared, or respected? I say: is it too much to ask for both?” Stare into your own placid face. Wriggle your lips. Try again. “My old man had a saying…”

When Nephtet catches you, you are smug. You thought of this first, and you will do it better, and she curses you, runs off to write up her own clever lines. When Jarvis catches you, you are embarrassed, stammer off an explanation like an excuse and avoid eye contact. He tells you it’s a good idea, that he wishes he’d thought of it, which somehow only makes you feel worse. “Is it better to be feared, or respected? I say: is it too much to ask for both?” Yes. 

There’s a lot of distress and hustle over whether your arm should be allowed into the stadium - it’s unfair, and gives you an advantage over the other tributes, but taking it away would handicap you unfairly instead, which is, apparently, just as bad. They decide to let you keep it, but force you to disable most of its "extracurricular uses”. That’s fine by you. If you really needed them, you could just re-enable half the things they turned off without all the fine-tuned machinery. It wouldn’t be “fair”, but you’re pretty sure that once you get to the arena, there are no rules.

~~

Your special talent was going to be marksmanship, but you’ve been watching the other tributes, and it looks like a popular choice this year. Last minute, you switch to hand-to-hand combat. Your rating is good, your alliances firmly within the inner career circle. Your interview goes off without a hitch. “My old man had a saying: ‘peace is having a bigger stick than the other guy’,” and “is it better to be feared, or respected?” The audience laughs in the right places, nods mournfully when you talk about the recent passing of your father, applauds madly for you when you stand and extend your metal hand to be shaken by Caesar, raise it to wave to the audience.

Everything is ringing in your ears as you return to the hallway, meet up with the rest of your team. Nephtet is bemoaning that you outshone her, Obadiah is clapping you on the shoulder, cigar in his mouth, and over the clamor of your stylist exclaiming how well all that eye makeup reshaped your face and your escort agreeing and throwing sighs about how happy the crowd seems, you catch Jarvis’ eye. “Excellent work, Mr. Stark,” he says, quietly. “Don’t expect I can top that.”

You shrug. “You don’t have to. Just go out there and hit them with your percentages or whatever, like you always do. It’ll be okay.”

He sort of does, but not in the way you’d expect. Maybe it’s just your own prejudice or something, but you figured Jarvis would do terribly in front of crowds - he never speaks very loudly, he’s hard to read, and he usually keeps his head down and his ears open - but against the heat of the spotlight, he’s hysterically funny, and you don’t really know what to do with this information. He’s dry and deadpan and sharp enough to pick up every cue he’s given, mean in an attractive and relatable way, quick, clever, placid. Things like “oh, yes, you’re known for your emotional _reservation_ , Caesar,” and “I could never do your job, I haven’t nearly enough teeth,” and “I find wit to be the unexpected and uninvited copulation of ideas, and exactly as uncomfortable to come across in public.” 

“One last question,” Caesar says, still laughing into the microphone, “when we had Mr. Stark up here, we talked about District 1, and how it connected him to his father. He said he would always love the district and the Capitol and all of Panem, as is his patriotic duty. So I ask you this: what are your thoughts on Panem?”

The microphone is wiggled back in Jarvis’ face, and for the first time in the interview, he pauses. You catch yourself leaning in for an answer, and try to shake yourself out of it. What are you, a Capitol citizen? “Well, I’m sure you know as well as I, Caesar,” he says, slowly, “that in the end, ‘patriotism’ is just a word, and one I try not to attach myself to; it generally comes to mean either _my country, right or wrong_ , which is infamous, or _my country is always right_ , which is imbecile.”

There’s a roar of laughter, a burst of applause, and Jarvis stands, shakes hands with Caesar, retreats. “What the hell,” you say, and drag the kid into an uninvited hug, “where did all that come from?”

He wriggles free, wrinkles his nose at you. “Nowhere, really,” he says, “I just said whatever I felt like saying.”

You survey him for a minute. “Christ,” you settle on after a while, “remind me never to piss you off.”

“Not to be insensitive, but if you intend to piss me off you’re going to have to do it soon,” he says, and something in your stomach shrivels, “everything’s over starting tomorrow.”

~~

Tonight was supposed to be your night on the mattress, but it’s the night before the stadium, and as you watch Jarvis trying to organize pillows to make the floor comfortable, you figure, fuck it, and tell him to take half the bed instead. Backs to each other, skin contact avoided, you try to talk, then lapse into silence. You have been thinking about the interview and about everything you know about this boy, and you have come up short. You ask him if he wants to - if he would let you kiss him.

Somehow, when you wake up, you are tangled around him. He says nothing about it, and neither do you. There is nothing left to be said.

~~

Everything’s going pretty okay in the games until you hit the snare.

There’s a sort-of alliance you and Nephtet have going on with the District 2s and 4s, which has served pretty well for the past week. The arena for this year is absolutely stunning, beautiful beyond measure with colored leaves on every tree, perfectly round rocks, vibrant grass and weeds - oh, and everything’s poisonous. Rhodey, the boy from District 2, has checked everything you’ve come across. Nothing in the arena is edible save for the food stash at the cornucopia, which is already mostly depleted. There were no weapons in the cornucopia - everyone who got something from it got food, and with twice as many tributes, the food went fast. Even the “fresh water” was poisoned - one of the girls from 4 found that out too late.

Still, weapons were scattered around the arena, which you found out when you were out scouting. Everyone in your group is equipped by now - you with a collection of knives and brass knuckles, Nephtet with a long spear - and though there’s no actual trust among you, there’s enough to sleep at night. For now. Take turns on night watch. Watch the sky and count down to the number of survivors.

The boy you kissed is already dead. You do not have time to mourn. You were a fool to think you could help him.

"It’s a week in and not even half the victors are dead,” Nephtet says, “this whole thing with twice as many tributes? Stupid. This game is going to take forever.”

“I think we’re on some kind of death precipice,” you add helpfully, “look how close we are to running out of food. Less well-managed teams are looking at starvation if they don’t get aggressive. We’re ready for them.”

“Quit boasting,” one of the guys behind you snaps, and you try suppress snorted laughter, “I hear the District 7 team was planning on hiding in the treeline. They might see your giant ego from across the map and come running.”

“Look, I don’t need you criticizing my ego when the biggest thing here is your bad attitude,” you reply. Nephtet, at least, laughs. Apparently, no one behind you did, because you feel a pebble smack the back of your head. “Hey, no need to get aggressive, guys, we’re all in this together,” you say, rotating your walking pattern to face them.

“Nobody said anything,” says the girl from District 2, brow wrinkled.

“Well, they didn’t have to,” you say, and shrug, “only an idiot wouldn’t know what a rock to the skull means. Come on, which one of you threw that?”

She looks to the boy, who looks at you. Everyone stops walking at about the same time. “What are you talking about?” He says. You frown.

“Could your poker face _be_ any lousier? Come on. Who threw the rock at me? Was it you? Come on. You or Rhodey?”

“I didn’t throw anything at anyone,” the boy says, suddenly looking a little aggressive and hot under the collar. You’ve seen that face on other boys before - it translated out, pretty cleanly, to ‘I want to break your nose and probably also your teeth’.

Nephtet, apparently frustrated that no one is moving, turns from her position at the front of the line. “Is there a problem here, gentlemen?”

You ignore her. “Fine, Rhodey,” you say, “but seriously, I don’t wanna walk directly in front of either of you. Nep, can we switch?”

“No,” she says. You ignore her again, walk past her. Which turns out to be a terrible idea.

The rope cinches tightly around your ankle and hoists you, violently, about ten feet directly up in the air. You splutter, spin slowly, stare down at your team panicking.

“You okay, Stark?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m good, I’m fine,” you stammer, “here, cut me down, cut me down before District 7 shows up.”

Nephtet stares at you, squints, smiles slowly. “Nnnno, I don’t think I will,” she coos, and lowers her spear.

“What? Come on,” you snap, “I’m sorry about walking in front of you, okay? Is that what this is about? The manners thing? Because I’m sorry about the manners thing, it’s kind of one of my issues.”

“It’s not the manners thing, Stark,” Rhodey says, “it’s the food thing. You said it yourself - we’re kind of on a death precipice. We talkin’ an avalanche, here? You’re rock number one.” He raises the bow, pulls an arrow, and points it directly at your face.

“Wait, no, what?” Your heart rate picks up. You really wish you weren’t turning gently in the air - you can imagine it’s not a good position for arguing your point in. But you haven’t got another choice. “You can’t kill me, you need me,” you try, falling back on empty bluster. “Come on, who’s come up with all the plans so far? You guys can’t survive without me. I have…information. About the arena.”

“That’s empty bluster,” Nephtet says dryly, then, “Rhodey, if you would?”

You cover your face with your arms, grit your teeth - and hear a thunk, followed by screaming. Look over your arms, look for an arrow in the tree trunk, see instead a wooden bolt splitting Rhodey’s windpipe in half, the rest of the team with weapons drawn spinning around. Distracted. You go for your belt, take a knife in your hand, try to climb up your own leg to the rope.

“Where did it come from?” Nephtet shrieks, “ _where did it -_ “

The next bolt hits her in the shoulder. Goes _through_ her shoulder. She screams, falls, clutches her wound. A third hits the girl from 2, and the 4s, apparently a little more attached to their own lives than the team, make like a tree and fuck off through the forest cover.

You slice through the rope, hit the ground hard

~~

It’s dark, wherever you are, and you can hear running water. Everything hurts - your eyes, your mouth, your back, your chest - God, and your chest _really_ hurts, what the fuck? - and you can feel your blood pumping through your ears. You’re on your back, you know that much, but you feel buzzy and dizzy. There’s a thick, stuffy feeling on your chest, like you can’t breathe properly - you gasp to get any oxygen in, wait for your eyes to readjust.

You’re not alone. Maybe twenty feet away is a boy your age, going through a bag. You don’t think he’s noticed you yet, slide a hand to your belt. You could hit him from here, easy, even with your eyes going screwy. Touch a hand to your knife - 

The knife’s not there.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the boy says, and you freeze in terror you didn’t know you could feel.

“Who are you?” You splutter, breathing hard to get the air in, “what’d you do? Where am I?”

“I am the man who saved your life. District 12, ah?” You say nothing, just stare. “We have spoken, you know,” he continues casually, “in the training hall.”

“I don’t remember,” you say as you try to roll onto your side. It’s hard work. Suddenly, you understand Kafka way more.

He laughs again, but you get the feeling that it’s not meant to sound pleasant. “Of course you don’t,” he says, smiling, “why would you remember me? I am only District 12, after all. I am no threat to the great Tony Stark. Not to a career like you.”

“Why’d you save me?” You give up on getting onto your back, stare up into the darkness above you. Memories are shooting back into your brain like hot needles of thought, and you breathe harder. “What happened? To my team? What was…was that you?”

“Ah, yes,” he sighs, “that, Mr. Stark, was a history lesson. You know, the invention of the crossbow changed the nature of siege warfare. Unlike the bow and arrow, the crossbow and its bolt are strong enough to penetrate even the strongest chain mail armor, or, for instance, the entire width of a man’s neck. Of course, the Ancient Greeks were using them as far back as the fifth century B.C., but I shouldn’t ramble on about that. What did Alexander the Great ever do, ha?” He taps his chin. "I have been following your team for some time, Mr. Stark,” he adds dryly, “really, it was very lucky that you were the one who wandered into my snare. If it had been anyone else, they would never have spent so long arguing and debating. They would have just killed them.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” you gasp, “why did you save me?”

“What am I, a search engine? If I remember correctly, I’m not the one with all the bandages and the hole in my chest. Maybe you should be offering me something instead of badgering me.”

A hole in the chest?

You struggle to sit up, try to look down your own torso, and hear, for the first time, a gentle mechanical whirring to your left. Somewhere, under the mass of bandages on your sternum, something that doesn’t belong in your body thrums mechanically, wires spread out from the center like the roots of a tree. You can’t breathe. There is a parasite between your lungs.

~~

The boy, to his credit, doesn’t push you, and when you wake up again, there’s light filtering through the darkness, which you now realize is a cave. You manage to sit up, to get to your feet, even. The wires from your chest lead directly to a box that reminds you of your father’s radio, dark and square and heavy as hell. Across the cave, Yinsen sorts through piles of things from the bags. Looks like he had a couple. Or, more accurately, like your group had a couple, and now they’re his.

You hold the not-a-radio in both your hands, approach him with it held in front of you. “What is this?”

“Modified land mine,” he says, and you almost drop it. He smiles. “Don’t worry. It can’t explode. Your boy made sure of that.”

“Who?”

“Edwin,” he says, and you hesitate for a moment - shudder. “He made an excellent partner. Good with ideas.”

“Like using a land mine as a power generator? There’s a line between genius and insanity,” you grumble, but despite the new intruder in it, you can feel your chest swell with pride. Jarvis - good with ideas. That’s how he’d want to be remembered, you think. “So what’s it plugged into?”

“Electromagnet,” He replies promptly. “It’s hard to explain - it’s stabilizing your heart rate. If you survive the games, you will need heart surgery - but this will work for now.”

You want to ask him how the hell he made an electromagnet in the games anyway, how he met with Jarvis, what the hell you’re doing here and not dead with a hole in your chest, but between the humming of the mine in your arms and the renewed pain in your body, you’re tired of asking questions. “Catch me up,” you say instead. And he smiles, and he does.

~~

Overview:

You’ve been asleep for the past three days. Or unconscious. Whatever. In that time, the starvation panic has rocketed. Seven deaths between then and now. Sixteen people remain in the arena, and there is, for all intents and purposes, no food left. Hunger is the only thing driving people now.

For the past week, the boy and his alliance were digging up the land mines that were scattered around the opening platforms near the cornucopia. There’s an enormous stash of them in the cave. But he’s the only member of his alliance left, and he doesn’t know what to do with them now that the technological brains are gone.

The cave is near the edge of the map, far enough away from the cornucopia that no one’s come far enough to look for it. He wants you to help him survive.

“Here’s the plan,” you say, when he finishes, “we have _land mines_. We’re going to re-purpose them into traps. And,” you say, tapping the ground with a metal finger, “my arm. I can make a kind of - particle accelerator thing - like a laser cannon - if I can get more electromagnets, or - or make some, or use this one.” You tap your chest. “And while we do that, we don’t kill each other. Okay?”

“And what about after that?” He says, inclining his head to the side. “When we are done, you will kill me?”

“Look,” you snap, “why did you save me if you didn’t want my help? I couldn’t kill you in this state anyway, I can barely walk. Are you scared of me?”

“You are the last career in the stadium, Stark,” he says, “I have every reason to be afraid of you. But that is not important now.” He shakes his head. “We work together or die, ah? I have no food left. We work fast. One of us goes home.”

~~

You talk with him. It would be pretty hard not to talk, considering your circumstances are forcing you to break down land mines in his presence. Ask him about District 12. He tells you there hasn’t been a victor from District 12 since the last quarter quell, twenty-five years ago, and that no one’s seen Steve Rogers since then. In his district, the games are seen as a meat grinder.

“But he’s your mentor, isn’t he?” You ask, around a mouthful of screws. “So like, you met him, right? Why’s he so secretive? Or is he actually dead or something, is that why he never comes on TV?”

He shrugs, doesn’t look up from the wires he’s slowly unfurling. “Mr. Rogers is a very…reclusive sort of man,” he says slowly, “mentoring for so long, with never a winner in the games, I think he has gone a very quiet brand of insane. He taught us nothing. We asked him for help, and he would say, ‘I cannot help. You will all die.’ And then he would stare at his knees or walk away.”

“He sounds…” you look for a word. “Terrible.”

He shrugs. “The games, I think, do these things to people,” he says, “when you are done, there is no room for humanity in your heart.” Blinks owlishly. “Would you rather live through the games and become like him, or die in the arena?”

“I don’t like either of those options. What about the option where I win, and then I marry a beautiful woman and fly off in my own personal jet? That’s the future I want.”

The boy laughs - not the tinned, angry laugh from before, something else entirely - and you think, maybe, you’ve done something right.

~~

“So what do I call you?”

“My name is Ho Yinsen,” he says, twisting wires carefully around each other. “Like this, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you say, “nice to meet you, Yinsen.”

“Nice to meet you too."

~~

“So where’d you find the mines?”

Yinsen makes a noncommittal ‘hmm’ noise. “I don’t know if you remember - a few years back, there was a tribute who dropped her token before the countdown finished - “

You shudder. Yeah, you remember those games. “And they had to scrape her off the map?”

“There’s land mines under most of the terrain near the cornucopia,” he says, nodding. “Since it wasn’t much of a defensible position this year, no one is ever really there. Everyone is afraid of it, no one is in it. It was easy to sneak through and dig - most of the mines were less than a foot down. They disable when the countdown ends.”

“Capitol probably wasn’t betting on people like you finding them. On anyone finding them. Or using them properly.”

“They weren’t betting on the Iron Man,” he says, and you smile, stare down at your work so he can’t see.

~~

He probably has the steadiest hands in the world, you think as he rebinds the bandages on your chest. He never wavers when he picks apart the mines, when he helps you build things, when he gently replaces the various patches on your dirty skin. When you change night shift, his fingers slide over your shoulders as he passes you. On the nights when the hunger gets worse, you take to leaning on each other in front of the fire, staring at embers and saying nothing. Silence means something in close proximity.

On some level, his medical help is a sort of professional thing between the two of you. With most of the careers gone, you’re officially the most competent fighter in the arena, and you’ve already chased away two wolf packs and a tribute who got a little too close to the mouth of the cave. You protect the cave and tell him what needs to get done - he cleans your wounds and does what you ask for. But it’s something more than that, now. He could kill you easily, but you trust him to touch you, to heal you.

~~

Help comes on a parachute. One of your sponsors sent a thermos of soup - at the beginning of the game, you would’ve snuck away and eaten it yourself. You split it equally in two. Survival looks more possible. Both of you sleep easier.

~~

“You have any family, Yinsen?” You are close to finished with the mines, which means your time actually in Yinsen’s presence grows thin. Questions grow a little more personal now.

“Yes,” he says, smiles, “my parents, three sisters. If I win the games, they will never be hungry again. And you, Stark?” He glances up at you. “Do you have a family up in District 1?”

You stare at him for a second, look back down, shake your head. “Nah. I…there was my dad, but he died before the reaping, and anyway, we…we weren’t close.”

He nods, slowly. “So you are the tribute who has everything,” he says quietly, “and nothing.”

You cannot think of anything to say.

~~

“Now hold on. Some of you may be declining my invitation. But this is no ordinary feast. Each of you need something desperately. Each of you will find that something in a backpack marked with your district number, at the Cornucopia, at dawn. Think hard about refusing to show up. For some of you, this may be your last chance.”

Yinsen stares at you. You stare at Yinsen. “What do we need desperately?” He asks. “Food?”

“Everyone needs food,” you say, shrugging. “The feast is at dawn tomorrow, at the cornucopia, and now we know where to plant our mines. Don’t worry about what the Capitol wants us to think we need - we could finish the games in a morning.” You flex the fingers of your metal arm, stare at the circle at the palm. “Remember the plan,” you warn, “you stay back, out of sight, and anyone we can’t take out with the mines, I can take out with my arm.”

You both glance to the blackened dent in the cave wall where you practiced aiming with your arm yesterday. Yinsen sighs through his nose, slowly. Everything he does now is slow, calculated - like he’s desperate not to waste energy through movement. “I am a little afraid to see what that would do to a human,” he says carefully.

“Me too,” you admit, quietly. His palm rests on your shoulder.

“Let’s go,” he says. You nod.

~~

Setting the trap goes okay - it’s coming back _from_ the trap when everything goes to shit.

He’s leaning on you for most of the walk back towards the cave - you use one arm to hold your personal heart transplant and the other to support him. It’s a good thing you’re quiet, because it means you can hear the sounds coming from inside the cave, and slink away before you’re seen.

“Jesus,” you hiss to him from behind a tree, “we’re out for an _hour_ and someone swoops in on our base. Well, I’m dry. Got any ideas?”

Yinsen is staring towards the cave entrance, brow furrowed. “Stark,” he whispers, “what was that part you needed for fuel? To make your arm work? Where is it?”

“It’s…oh. Shit.” Your face falls. “It’s still in there. Okay. We need a new plan. What’s the likelihood they’re all going to go to the feast?”

“Stark,” he says, quietly, “I’m going to draw them away. Go in, get the thing for your arm, come save me.”

“What?”

“There’s only three,” he goes on, urgently, “and other than us, there’s only those three and two stragglers. They won’t feel safe enough to only send one or two after me. I’ll lead them to the feast if I have to.” He stares up at you for a second, then slips out from under your arm, and, on unsteady legs, stumbles towards the cave mouth, crossbow in hand.

“Yinsen!” You hiss after him. “Stick to the plan!”

“There is no plan, Stark,” he hisses back, and then cries out, “Hey, District 5!” And fires a bolt straight into the light.

You think maybe you should be concerned about how good Yinsen is about pulling negative attention towards him, or maybe where he found the strength to run as fast as he does, or even why the new cave-dwellers are so eager to fall into such an obvious trap, but you don’t have the time to think about any of those things. They run out of the cave, and you swoop in behind them, quiet as you can on metal legs, rummage around in the pile of metal scraps it was hidden in. Find ammo. Reload. Pop open the slot on your wrist and jam the little cylinder in as fast as you can - three shots, at most, more than you need - scramble to your feet, and whirl around to see another tribute, three feet from you, spear raised. You’re not sure if she was hiding in here the whole time or if she followed you in, but she’s on the swing back, and you have no weapons. You raise your palm to her and slam your other hand against your forearm.

She splatters against the wall grotesquely. You breathe hard, fall back on your ass, resist the urge to vomit - there’s no food in your stomach to get rid of, anyway. Shake. Stare at the land mine in your arms. You have to go save him - he’s in trouble - he’s your ward - you protect him - but your legs will not move. Not until you hear the explosion and the cannon fire ringing in your ears.

Yinsen.

“Yinsen!” You scream, and bolt after him.

~~

He is still alive when you find him. You wish he wasn’t. Not much remains of his body, and what does is broken and bruised. He wheezes badly when he breathes. You have passed the remains of three corpses, you think - though it’s hard to tell, and you hardly bothered counting. You pull him into a sitting position, and he coughs, blinks up at you.

“Didn’t realize…how big the blast radius would be,” he wheezes, “thought I cleared it.”

“It’s okay, that doesn’t matter,” you say, stumbling through your own words, “you’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna live, you’re gonna get out of this alive with me, okay?”

“Only one of us can leave, Stark,” he says slowly, “it was never going to be me.”

“Come on, don’t talk like that,” you say. Your face is hot and your throat is tightening around your words, “what about your family, huh? Come on. You’ll be the first victor from District 12 in twenty-five years and your family’s gonna eat, they’re gonna be so proud of you.”

“My family is dead, Stark. I’m from the Seam. They starved to death years ago.” Your heart stops. “It’s okay. I am going to see them now. This was always the plan.”

You shake your head dumbly. Your lips shake as you try to get words out. “Why did you save my life? Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“That boy loved you,” he whispers, coughs. “Don’t waste it. Don’t…don’t waste your life.”

You wait for him to say something else. A cannon fires above you instead.

Something in you won’t let you let go of him. Like Gilgamesh of old, you hold him, lift him in your arms, carry him to the center of the arena. Like Gilgamesh of old, you bury your face in your hands and weep. And like Gilgamesh of old, now that your friend’s body lays in your arms, you can kill without remorse, without blinking, without thought.

You win the games with tears mingling with your sweat and blood and the dirt of the ground. You are your own legacy - not Howard Stark’s son, but Tony Stark, the Iron Man, with the last person you loved dead in your arms.

~~

Sex is easy. Take attractive woman home, fuck, and when she falls asleep, pull yourself away from her, get dressed, leave a note on the door, lock yourself in the basement until she’s gone. It doesn’t mean anything. Sex doesn’t ever mean anything - it’s just heat and friction and chemicals. It’s not real.

You don’t sleep anymore. You work. Long hours into the night, day after day, pushing yourself until you fall off your chair and wake up on the floor hours later. Nights pass easier when you don’t dream. When you do, you dream about the boy you left behind and the man who saved your life, and it feels like you are drowning.

He told you not to waste your life. You don’t know how to fix it. God, if you had money or if you were from the Capitol, if you had an industry or a business or something, maybe you could fix things, maybe you could help people or protect them, or...

Yinsen died because you couldn’t protect him, and it fucking destroys you. It is easier to only care about yourself. You can protect yourself.

~~

Pepper Potts can protect herself, too. In fact, she can destroy people without your help, without a weapon, probably without even trying. You watch, in stupefied awe, as she sets the rest of the tributes on each other like wild dogs fighting over a link of meat. You bet on her. You make tons of money off of it, too.

She is beautiful and stark and entirely humorless about your attempts to woo her, eyes set directly forward in her head. You think you’re in love, and it scares the shit out of you. Quite possibly, she’s even smarter than you are - you’re never sure if your thoughts are your own when you’re around her, or if she planted them in your head herself days ago. Weeks ago. Months ago. She’s the queen of inception, and you are terrified of her, and you want to hold her in your arms and protect her from the harsh winds, and do nothing else at all.

It takes you ten years to ask her to marry you. The idea of loving her is something foreign and unwelcome, but it is petulant and insistent and it grows every time you see her flip her hair over her shoulder. It takes you ten years too long to realize that you need her in your life.

Slowly, you relearn closeness. You learn how to trust someone with yourself, how to fall asleep wrapped around her, how to hold her hand and not feel like you have to say anything at all. You learn how to be quiet. And, you think, she loves you back.


	8. Bruce Banner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 47th Annual Hunger Games.

You didn’t mean for this to happen. You never meant for any of it. You never wanted to hurt anyone, ever. But ever since you were young, your body hasn’t been your own. You have no real memories from before the games - there are glimpses of District 3, brief flashes of sidewalks you knew led home or stacks of books at the library, but no events, no family, no relationships. Before you were fifteen, there was nothing.

You don’t remember the games, either. Sometimes, you try to watch the recordings, but after you watch those, you can’t remember them, either. Something in you is standing between you and the knowledge of what you did. You wish you could remember. You’re glad you can’t.

You never remember going to sleep or waking up, either - in the mornings, the earliest you get is sitting at your kitchen counter with cereal or eggs or something in front of you. The people who work in your house joke about your bad morning temper, but you don’t…remember your temper. Your day begins with breakfast in front of you - it ends at your desk while you’re reading. Like clockwork. Sometimes - often - you find things broken or torn or scribbled over, things you cared about. You never know how they end up broken. You think, maybe, you did it.

At some point, the people who work in your house stop working there. You think you fired them. You can’t remember why - but, as you live alone, you decide it’s safer for them that way. The breakage around the house gets worse. The tiles on the walls of your shower are shattered, now. The windows in the attic are broken. For some reason, none of this scares you. It just makes you think about protective measures. There is someone else sharing your body with you, and whoever they are, they’re dangerous. Best to keep them - you - inside, before someone else gets hurt.

Initially, you searched around for information on it - tried to figure out what you were, what was wrong with you, what the thing sharing your body meant - but it was like a blank slate of information. You searched for psychology books in the Capitol library, but they were few and far between - most of the information, you’re aware, was destroyed long ago, in book burnings and fear campaigns and god knows what else. You do what you can - check out every book you think could help, read through all of them a hundred times over. None of them help. More things disappear from your memory, like darkness engulfing your vision. Days come in snapshots. Yesterday, you remember coffee - a record playing - an announcement from the Capitol - showering - today. Soon, you expect, you won’t remember anything at all. You throw yourself into writing, scribbling up research papers off of labs you don’t remember doing, trying to write and publish the information as fast as possible before you lose yourself forever. It’s not frightening, really. It’s just lonely.

The letters. You remember the letters.

They start coming in when you’re maybe nineteen or twenty years old - you don’t remember exactly, anymore. Tony Stark, a name that sounds familiar in your head, sending in a stream of fan letters. At least one a week. A comment about this paper you wrote, or the experiment you did for this to get that effect, and maybe it would be more effective like _this_ , and maybe he could swing by and help sometime? After months, years, of forgetting the world around you, of living in an unpenetrated isolation, of knowing that no one out there misses you for your absence, you suddenly get letters, hundreds of letters from one man. He wants to talk to you. He wants to see you. He reads your papers - he’s read all of your papers. Calls your work ‘unparalleled’.

It’s almost a year before you can bring yourself to write one back, and your hand is shaking, unsteady. Tell him you are flattered, intrigued, but unwell - unsafe - possibly contagious - definitely ill. Tell him you don’t think you have a lot of time left.

“ _Well then,_ “ he writes, “ _there’s not a moment to lose._ “

~~

You remain unconvinced, but something deep inside you is flattered at his persistence. You fall into a habit of writing letters back to him - you can always remember writing a letter, or reading one, you find out - and it becomes a conversation. A slow, lumbering conversation, but the back-and-forth is something new to you. Maybe you did this with other people, once.

“ _I remember you in the games,_ ” he writes, “ _your ideas were fantastic. When I found out you were going into experimental research, I knew I had to follow whatever you did.”_

_“Well, I’m glad someone remembers them. I can’t remember anything that happened in the games at all.”_

_“You’re lucky. I wish I could forget.”_

_“You were in the games?”_

_“Of course I was. The quarter quell. Did you not recognize my name? That was why I was so interested in you. You adapted to life after the games so normally.”_

_“I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything properly. And I wouldn’t call my adaptation particularly normal or envious.”_

_“Is memory part of your sickness? Like, losing memory.”_

_“It_ is _my sickness. I don’t know anything about it except that I can’t remember anything. I can’t remember falling asleep or waking up, I don’t remember eating, I find things broken and I don’t remember how they got that way. It’s like there’s huge chunks of my mind just missing.”_

_“Sounds like disassociation to me. Have you talked to a doctor about it or something?”_

_“I don’t remember.”_

_“How long has this been going on?”_

_“My whole life. It’s like I - I think I was supposed to be twins or something, but only one body was born, and I’m sharing myself with someone else. Someone dangerous.”_

_“Maybe you should try writing him a letter. Maybe he doesn’t know about you, either._ ”

~~

It sounds stupid. It sounds so _simple_. You wonder why you didn’t think of it before.

The letter you write to the Other You is a work in progress, rough and crumpled and redrafted a hundred times over. This should sound good, important, it should be inspiring and familiar and…and, uh.

“ _My name is Bruce Banner. I’m the victor for District 3, but I think you won. Who are you?_ ”

You stare down at the finished project and sigh. It’s just an introduction, you tell yourself. In case there really is someone else. Try to think of somewhere to put it where he’ll see it - on the bed, of course, he’s the only one who sleeps in it, apparently.

You leave the note on your pillow, then retreat downstairs to eat something. You’re feeling kinda sweaty.

~~

The graphite is so dark on the paper that you have to assume the pencil broke. The thick, large letters bore into your eyes.

HULK.

You are standing on a precipice, you know, and you are afraid. You don’t want to continue correspondence with this other…with Hulk. It would be easy to drop the pencil and throw the paper away and pretend everything into nothingness.

Instead, you scribble something back.

“ _Why do you break things? Why can’t I watch recordings of the games?_ ”

~~

NOT SAFE. YOU WEAK. HULK STRONG. HULK ANGRY.

You stare at the note. You’re not sure why Hulk writes in the shortest possible sentences, especially since you think he took your time in school. You don’t know why _you’re_ the one who made it out fine. The writing looks like he grips the pencil with a fist and forces it down, like a kid. You wonder if he’s your age. Maybe he hasn’t been with you as long as you thought. You have to write another message, but you have to think.

“ _So…what are we, anyway?_ ” You write, then chew on your pen and stare hard at the window. You don’t think Hulk will understand vague hypotheticals. You have to explain what you mean concisely. “ _I mean, we’re two people, but we have the same body. Have we always been together? If not, was I first? Or were you first?_ ” Tap the side of your face thoughtfully. “ _How far back do you remember?_ ”

~~

Your days start to seem longer, if only slightly. Tony keeps sending letters, you keep answering them. You can remember reading a book - the whole book - and sitting on the back porch, though not how you got there.

Tony becomes more insistent in his letters that you get out of the house, but after confirming Hulk’s existence, you find yourself even more terrified of leaving. You start locking doors on the inside. You have no intention of letting him escape.

One letter from Tony is long and rambling, letters scratched and panicked, ten numbers written at the bottom. He says it’s his phone. He says to call. He says that the nightmares are getting worse, that he is scared of being alone, that he needs to hear another human’s voice, not on TV, someone who he knows won’t die. He says to call, Banner, please, I can’t do this alone. It takes you three days to get up the courage to do it.

He doesn’t even pick up directly - some woman answers the phone, and when you ask to speak to him, she launches into some well-rehearsed tirade about how men are pigs, _especially that one_ , and, unsure of what you should do, you nod and make agreeable “mmhm” noises until she finishes blowing off steam, thanks you, and hangs up. You try to think of an explanation, but there are no words. Tony’s girlfriend, maybe? Maybe they just had a huge argument? A maid, tired of picking things up for him? Your stomach clenches like a fist. Your mouth is too dry to convince you to try again.

Thankfully, you don’t have to. Your phone rings not two hours later, and though you pick it up with caution, give a tentative “Bruce Banner?”, the second he speaks, you’re awash with relief.

“Tony Stark,” he says, “so flattered to speak to you, Dr. Banner, huge fan of your work.” It sounds sarcastic - maybe? But maybe that’s just his voice. You haven’t spoken to another human being in almost two years, and back when you did, your interactions with people were sparse. You grip the phone in two hands. Your palms are sweaty - wouldn’t want it to slip loose.

“I, I honestly can’t tell,” you say, and laugh nervously, “are you being facetious? I’m, I don’t know.”

“No, I mean, I really am flattered,” he says, and you’re _still not sure_ , how does he even do that with his voice, “no one in the Capitol’s seen you in like five years, and of all the people in the world, you called me.”

“Well, of all the people in the world, you sent me your _number_. Why’d you…” You shake your head, try to refocus. “You seemed distressed in the last letter you wrote me. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Oh - nah, don’t worry about that. I was kinda drunk. Is that all you were calling for?”

“Well, that, and so that you’d have my number. If you get kinda drunk again, call me. It’s not like I’m ever not around.”

“You sort of are,” he says, and you can hear him opening a bag of something unhealthy, “how’s stuff with the H-man? You crack his code yet?”

“Not sure,” you say, tucking your shoulder up under the phone for support, “but I’ve been organizing the whole dialogue so far and I’m making notes. It’s a little complicated, but - “

“Look, what if we - and I’m just spitballing here - met up, and you showed me in person?” His voice goes into an almost oppressively casual tone, and your blood goes to ice. “Districts 1 and 3 are pretty much equidistant from the Capitol, I know a good burger joint up there.”

“Not the Capitol,” you snap more aggressively than you mean to. Breathe deep. “I appreciate it, Stark, but I can’t - look, I can’t meet you because I can’t meet anyone. It’s dangerous. _I’m_ dangerous. I can’t just - “

~~

You cannot _believe_ you were talked into this.

Actually, there’s a lot of things you can’t believe. You can’t believe Tony Stark is shorter than you. You can’t believe he considers this a ‘good burger joint’. You can’t believe you can remember every second of today, from waking up to sitting across from the smaller-than-life Capitol darling. You can’t believe he’s trying to diagnose you.

“It sounds like DID,” he says flatly as he balls up his napkin and wipes it between his fingers. “I mean, there’s not that much accurate material on it anymore, but the material I _could_ find matches your Hulk to a T. Or an H. Whatever.”

“What material could you even find?” You ask around a mouthful of sweet potato fries. They’re okay. Could use more salt. “I’ve been up to the library even here in the Capitol, gone through their digital database and everything. Nothing.”

“Yeah, _legally_ there’s nothing,” he says, reaches for his bag. “Not a huge fan of this place, though. I bet you anything Snow’s never even BEEN in his own crummy library.”

“Did you just say ‘crummy’?”

“I did, and I made it sound awesome. Now shut up, this is important,” Tony railroads over you, and you think maybe he’s embarrassed. It’s really impossible to tell when he refuses to look you in the eye. “I found two books and a whole host of sites when I booted Snow’s protection system to the curb last Victor’s Ball.”

“You _what_?”

“Yeah, it was barely a protected system. Note to Bruce: ‘password’ is not a secure password, ever. Not that that was his password. Or that there was a password to begin with. It was all encrypted data. I just thought this was a great opportunity to give you a run-through on basic tech safety.” He pauses rummaging around in his bag. “Where was I going with this? Oh, right.” With the kind of expression that you bet a drug dealer making an illicit amount of money might have, he pries two brown, coverless books from his bag, sets them on the table, and pushes them across the surface. “I haven’t read those, but I think one’s a first-hand account and the other’s a character study of some kind. I didn’t know how long I’d have Snow’s data available, so I just printed screenshots of everything I could find. Tucked ‘em between the pages. Which, you know, wasn’t the smartest or safest thing to do, now that I think about it, but it was months ago and if Snow was gonna give me shit about it he would’ve done it by now.” He shrugs, drops his bag next to his chair again.

“A lot of the information from the database seems pretty scathing of this _Sybil_ novel,” he presses on after a long, quiet pause, “I guess it’s a lot older. First steps into new terrain, you know, they don’t usually go so well.” He’s watching your face intently - you can feel his eyes on your skin - but you don’t know what to do. 

Just touching the books makes your stomach churn, but you carefully sweep them into your bag. “I’ll make sure to read them when I have the time,” you manage, “but don’t…put yourself in danger for me again. Snow’s probably watching us right now. Even if nothing bad happened this time, that’s no guarantee for the future.”

“You seem twitchy.”

“Maybe we should just talk on the phone next time.”

“Good plan.”

~~

The book that is not _Sybil_ is called _Today I’m Alice_. It makes you want to vomit. You _do_ vomit. Considering it as a memoir makes you uneasy and sick with empathy. Considering it as a life experience rings familiar in your ears. You don’t know which is worse.

The book that is _Sybil_ is less than realistic, and there are certainly a number of parts that leave you hurt or offended on the subject’s behalf, so you take to unfolding the PDFs tucked inside the pages and nodding in empathy at the general outrage against them. Things begin to make sense.

~~

“I could come over to your place.”

“No, you can’t.”

“You could come over to my place.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Banner, I want you to meet Pepper, and the more you say ‘no’, the more I want to let her get on this phone and manipulate you into doing it.”

“I’m sure she’s lovely, but I’m just starting to figure my system out. Call me again in a few months and see how I’m doing then.”

“A few months? But no woman has ever stayed with me that long! I want you to meet her _before_ I break up with her!”

“Goodbye, Tony.”

~~

“I’m going to propose. Do you think a diamond ring is too cliche? Yeah, definitely it’s that. Okay, what about opals? Do women like opals? Oh my god, I can’t believe I don’t know what her favorite gemstone is. Is this a big thing for women? Is that a thing that women do?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me this, Stark.”

“I figured maybe you had a woman in your system or something. Maybe she could give me some tips.”

“Nope, just me and Hulk in here.”

“Great. Genius me, calling up the sausage fest and the Jets here. Do you know any women? Do you think any of them can help me? All the women I know are mad at me because I had sex with them and then disappeared the morning afterwards.”

“Goodbye, Tony.”

~~

“She said maybe! Maybe is a soft yes, right?”

“I’m not your pre-marriage councilor, Stark. Also, if I send you test results instead of a congratulations card, we’re still friends, right?”

“Send me a congrats card too. With a check in there.”

“I never send you anything less.”

“I have to get drunk and excited. Night, Banner.”

“Night, Stark.”

~~

“Come out to my place this weekend, Snow is making a big terrible announcement about the Quarter Quell and I wanna get angry at him and throw stuff at the TV.”

“Sure, I’ll get packed.”

“Woah, shit, wait, seriously?”

“I wanna throw stuff at the TV too. How much wine should I bring?”

“At least two bottles. Possibly five.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long hiatus. Trying to write Bruce was not kind to me. I wanted to write a respectful portrayal of D.I.D., but not to lose what makes Bruce the Hulk as well.
> 
> Anyway, finals are coming up, but I might get back to writing on a real schedule after that. Thanks for reading - only two more flashback chapters left before the story hits.


	9. Nick Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 38th Annual Hunger Games.

There was a time when you had to grovel and fight for scraps, too. To stand in the rubble of your district burns your sight, and you blind yourself with drink. One good eye - good for what?

You’ve watched victors come and go. District 5 has its fair share of them, cooing and cradling with their peers and their good fortune. But they are afraid of you, part like the Red Sea before you, cease all jabbering like the silence of birds before a storm. You are the oldest victor. Even the citizens of the Capitol flinch when you look at them for too long. Good. Fear is good for them, maybe. You fix them with one eye and burn them alive.

When you dream, you can feel the other one being torn out.

You didn’t want to die, and you were smart enough to know that wounds like that killed fast. Medical attention couldn’t get to you inside the stadium - so you got out as fast as possible, the only way you knew how. Hunted the other tributes down like rats. Destroyed the strongest before they had time to form an alliance. Picked off the weak and the humble when they were done. 46 hours. The shortest games ever. The most kills held. On television, you dared future victors to beat your time. At home, you prayed they wouldn’t.

You made a nightmarish victor, sure, but as a mentor, you were just bad. Your advice sent tributes to their deaths almost every time. It became quickly apparent that your victory was ill-advised and dangerously rare. Year after year, you watched your tributes fail where you had succeeded. You sank into drink.

Maria.

Maria succeeds where her predecessors failed. She doesn’t just listen blindly, she argues with you, brings strategies to the table, ideas, analysis. She’s 15, and she’s a genius. You tell her so, and she flusters under praise. “Get used to compliments, Hill,” you say, reaching impolitely past the escort for a bowl of potatoes, “your interview with Flickerman is going to be full of them.”

“That’s annoying,” she replies through a mouth full of ham.

“That’s his _job_. And don’t talk with your mouth full, it’s rude. What were you, raised in a barn or something?” You wish you could smoke inside. There are too many rules in the Capitol, and you hate all of them on principal. “Speaking of, I don’t think we’ve discussed the interview portion at all.”

She cringes. “Do we have to?”

“We do, if you wanna be prepared. You get nervous in front of crowds?”

“A little.”

“So that’s why we practice. Everyone preps for it in a different way. Even Stark - he finds lines he likes the sound of and practices them. Sometimes. Sometimes he just wings it.”

She tips her eyes to the side, and you know she’s thinking intently. “Is he as much of an asshole in real life as he is on TV?”

A smile creeps over your face in spite of yourself. “Worse. Don’t worry about Stark right now. I’ll give you some sample questions, and you practice responding. Tell me why 5 the greatest District in Panem. Go.”

~~

Your grandfather tells you not to let them see the fear in your eyes. You nod solemnly. You are 15 years old, and the victory train stands at attention in the station.

You speak with your grandfather often, these days. He’s the only member of the family who still looks you in the eye when he’s talking to you - no one else can stand to see your face. At the Capitol, they said the scarring might fade with time, and they gave you a glass eye to support the empty socket, but you still can’t bear to feel the ragged, raised patterns of skin on your face. You don’t like mirrors.

“Nicholas,” he says, “you are a man now, and you are the caretaker of this District. You must stay strong eternally. Keep this with you while you are gone, to remember us when you are away from home.” He passes you a carefully folded square of black fabric.

With the careful delight of any child opening a gift, you unfold it into…an eyepatch. Glance at your grandfather for an explanation. “It was my grandfather’s,” he says, chest swelling with an ancient pride, “made of some special fabric they have in the Capitol, I guess that’s why it hasn’t disintegrated yet. Put it on.” Hands barely shaking, you do, set it over the glass eye, hide your wound. Hide your weakness.

Your grandfather looks at you, nods approvingly. “You’d better get going,” he says, finally, and opens his arms for an embrace. And as you enter it, his mouth sits next to your ear.

“Trust no one.”

And then he is gone, and you are gasping, sweating, bolt upright in the oppressive darkness of your room. You breathe hard, throw your legs over the side of the bed. You do not weep. For your grandfather, you refuse to.

~~

The interview, despite the prep you have, doesn’t go well. You cringe as you watch Maria go nearly to pieces under the attention of the Capitol - you’re going to have to talk to her about the definition of ‘a little’ stage fright. The audience likes her well enough, maybe because the constant flushing of her face reminds them of a child, but for you, your skin boils with empathy and pity. It’s all you can do not to sink lower in your seat when she glances to you like an anchor.

Dinner is quiet, after that. You can sense her glancing towards her room, know she’s tired and scared and nervous and ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow is the beginning of the end. To some extent, you’re not as scared for her as you could be - of all the victors in the arena, she was scored the highest on her combat testing, and you know for a fact she’s being placed as a fairly easy bet early on in the games, but she’s your tribute. Your tributes don’t usually come home.

You have not told her this - you cannot tell her this. Not until after she wins. You refuse to consider that she won’t.

In hours to come, she will creep out of her room and back into your company, swaddled in Capitol-provided fleecy nightclothes, peer at you from the couch like a small child. You watch her from over the newspaper - it’s mostly betting scores, anyway. “Can’t sleep?”

She’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to die,” she says, and flops onto her side.

“Then don’t,” you say bluntly. Her mouth is mostly covered by oversized sleeves, but you think you can see a smile.

“There’s 24 people going into that arena,” she says, “which means it’s a 23-to-1 chance of survival. They’re unfriendly odds.”

“Says here in the newspaper that _you_ have 5-to-1 odds,” you reply, shake the pages at her, “and they’ll get better if you get a full night of sleep in there.”

She blinks slowly, drowsily. “I can’t sleep. Tell me a story or something.”

“I don’t know any.”

“Sing for me?”

“I’m tone-deaf.” She raises her eyebrows at you. “And my throat hurts,” you add, as though that makes a difference, “and I don’t sing.”

She sighs, rests her head on the arm of the couch. “I have a sister,” she says quietly, not really looking at you. “She’s only three. I used to sing for her, to get her to go to sleep. It always seemed like - like maybe she shouldn’t have fallen asleep to some of that stuff. A lot of it was really grim. I don’t know a lot of soothing songs.” Her fingers fold and unfold in and out of a fist. “There was one about a hanging man, and about the inevitability of death, and about slavery and triumph - rejection - I used to sing songs like that to her, and she’d go out as soon as you snap your fingers.” She peers at her fingers, like she’s never seen them before. “Humans are strange,” she says, softly, “the old suppress the young, and the young grow into the old and suppress the younger. And everyone says they’re doing it for the right reason when they’re old. When does it stop, Fury? When do we change?”

You stare at the tribute, staring at you with hopeless, glassy eyes, curled on the couch like a tired dog. And you sigh, and set your head back against the headrest of the chair, and open your mouth.

~~

_You got to go to the lonesome valley,_   
_You got to go there by yourself._   
_Nobody else can go for you,_   
_You got to go there by yourself._

You help your father lower his father’s casket into the ground. You are nineteen, and the sweat on your brow mingles with and hides the dampness of your eyes. It’s shining mahogany, with brass handles on the sides, and you hate it. Your grandfather was never supposed to be buried like this, in a cemetery with grave dirt slipping over the cover, grey and ashen. No casket. It should have been under the tree at the edge of the District border, the tree he taught you to climb with.

You watch your father. He is stoic and silent. Days ago, he asked you to do the eulogy, and the words in your mouth haunt you.

“If I knew anything about my grandfather,” you say slowly, composure wheeling desperately, “I know this - he would not have wanted us to weep for him.” Stare out at the crowd. Family members, your grandfather’s friends, people you don’t know but think were important. “On his deathbed, he spoke of Panem. Of the people here. And he told me - ‘burn this motherfucker down’.” His words dry on your lips. “Eyes forward and dry. We do not weep for him. We burn with him.”

~~

Your mother helps you bury your father when you are thirty. When you are forty-five, you bury her by yourself, under the tree at the edge of the District. No one comes but the wind and the sky.

_Oh, you got to ask the Lord’s forgiveness -  
Nobody else can ask Him for you…_

You go home to an empty house, and you wait for darkness to take you.

~~

The eyepatch keeps dreams at bay - something in the fabric holds memories back. It’s less a fabric and more a soft, pliant leather, actually, which is probably (you suspect) why it never fell apart. Your escort tells you it’s probably Russia leather. You’re tempted to ask what ‘Russia’ is, but you hold your tongue - almost certainly, it’s some Capitol thing, special terms made up for products that find their way from the Districts. Still, Capitol as it may be, you can sleep easy with it on your eye for years.

But as years go on, it’s not enough - nightmares worm their way through it, pierce through your brain, and you startle awake in sweat and terror. You travel to the Capitol, ask for a coat of it, tailored to you specifically. It helps.

You are thirty-two when it becomes necessary. In the summer, when you refuse to wear it for the heat, your mother forces you to sleep in the shed. She says your screaming is too loud, boy, and the District is watching you.

_You got to go to the lonesome valley, yes sir._  
 _You got to go there by yourself -_  
 _Nobody else, nobody else, nobody else can go for you,_  
 _You got to go there by yourself._

~~

When you wake up, it is morning, and Maria is already gone. You skip breakfast and run to the betting stands.

Some citizens around you are already shaking their head and tutting about bad luck, turning in heaps of money. You scan the betting options desperately, see who’s left - find her name, let tension seep out of your shoulders. 5-1, like usual - she’s second only to one of the careers, and you nod, mouth tight. Cross your arms.

Someone jostles your shoulder, and you know who it is without looking. There are very few people who can willingly jostle you. “Fury,” Natasha says, arms crossed in a tight imitation of your own. “What brings you to the betting stands? I thought you were more of a ‘stay at home’ mentor.”

“I needed to stretch my legs,” you reply, eye fixated on the scoreboard. “And you, Romanov? I never pegged you as a betting woman. Thought you were smarter than that.”

“Normally I am,” she says, shrugging, “but Clint says he saw Rogers here last year. Don’t want to miss a legendary opportunity like that. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“I just got here. Besides, I haven’t exactly got 20/20 vision these days, and he’s below my line of sight standing up.” You’re still watching the board. Maria’s name is remaining steadily in place, but other names are disappearing fairly rapidly. “Where’re you putting your money?”

“Not sure yet. My work’s already out,” she says, blows air out of the side of her mouth, “but Lewis was talking big about her girl. Subterfuge. You know, the Pepper Potts treatment. So.” Shrugs casually. “Still, looks like your kid is doing well so far. Anyway, I’m waiting until the end of day one before I toss down any real cash. You?”

“I don’t bet,” you say, and unfold your arms, press fingers into your pockets. “I’m going to go find somewhere to watch it from.”

“Nice seeing you, Fury,” she calls after you. You do not look back.

~~

The dramatic replays are all over TV that night, leaving you to catch up on what you missed by oversleeping. And holy shit, if Maria isn’t fucking brutal. In half the videos, she’s coated in the blood of other victors - the other half are just showing how she got that way. You chain your way through half a pack of cigarettes to drain the tension that’s been sitting on your back like an ugly troll for the entire day, sit out on the balcony looking over the Capitol. She could win, you think, maybe as fast as you did. It doesn’t have to take long.

It takes a few days. Not even a week, really. Lewis - Darcy Lewis, District 9, real skin-and-bones kinda kid - wasn’t lying about her tribute, whatever she said to Natasha about it, but in the end, you watch Maria destroy her. They’re sunk deep in the mud of a freshwater lake, Lewis’ tribute on the ground, stabbing upward into Maria’s intestinal track - but Maria has the advantage, pressing thumbs into the girl’s windpipe. The death is not swift. Up close, you can see tears of pain streaking through the dirt and mud caking her face. The announcers joke about two “hot young women” rolling around in the mud.

She comes back to you alive, limping even after surgical care, palm pressed against her stitches. Buries her face in your chest and sobs. She does not bother to be dignified in private, and you decide not to hold it against her. Rest a palm against her head.

~~

You glance at your watch, glance at Maria. “Ready, kid?”

“I thought I’d never have to come to another reaping,” she says, quietly, stares at her hands. “I thought I was done. I thought I was safe.”

“You know, they might not call you,” you say, “this might not have to matter to you.”

“They might call _you_ ,” she says, “are you ready for that?”

“Yeah, sure.” Your eyes catch on a tree at the edge of the district border, rest your elbows on your knees. The back porch has a pretty dreary view in the winter. “I’ve lived long enough, anyway.”


	10. Steve Rogers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 25th Annual Hunger Games. The First Quarter Quell.

They take Bucky away.

The announcement of the quarter quell was stated over the wireless, and District 12 was in a flurry for days. No children would be from the district's womb untimely ripped - but the adults of the district would decide on the children they would send in to die. You were probably the obvious choice - no parents to stand up for you, and a complete drain on the district. You couldn't even walk properly, let alone work in the mines. Bucky tried to volunteer for you when the news came - he'd stand a decent chance, he argued, the district might have their first victor if they let him go instead - but they needed him in the mines, and besides which, he was too old, technically, at nineteen. He was angry for you. At least someone was - you still weren't. You figured it was a pretty justified decision, anyway, trying to get rid of you.

But you never intended to die.

Rolling over and exposing your underbelly has never been your style. Sure, your spine is twisted, and you've got flat feet, and you can't hear properly - actually, if you did a body check of everything that was wrong with you, it'd take all night - but goddammit, you _will_ fight to stay alive even if the whole world and your own body fights against you.

And you do. You do win, through sheer fucking luck. You know you're too slow to get to the cornucopia before anyone else, so you don't even try, just stay on your pedestal and look around for an extra second. You grab three packs off the ground - two tributes near you forgot to get theirs entirely, plus your own - and run straight for the tree cover. Years of enduring chronic pain has taught you to ignore anything that twinges or aches, and as a result, while you can't run very _fast_ , you can ignore your body and just keep going. No one even notices you leave - they take your death for granted.

And you hide. And survive. No one comes looking for you - you're not dangerous or desirable enough to be hunted down, and you're good at keeping quiet and motionless whenever a group goes by past the riverbank or under the tree you've tucked yourself away in. The climax of the games comes six days in, while you're still living off the rations from the packs - two careers, from District 1 and District 4, try to kill each other at the cornucopia. The survivor staggers around with a lost arm, searches the sky for a helicopter to rescue him from his own bleeding - finds none. He bleeds out slowly, agonizingly, screeching different names like he's trying to find whoever survived. He never thinks to call yours. Your nightmares are still plagued with his screams.

Returning home feels like a curse. Your whole district is chanting your name, cheering for you, like they didn't send you away as a death sentence. You find Bucky, let him hold you for hours on end, sit in silence with him for almost a full day. "I didn't kill anyone," you tell him, over and over again.

"I know," he says every time, and brushes the hair out of your eyes.

You don't want to be pitied, but you can't stand the thought of being around people, and when you are forced to be in public, you are as sullen and stony-faced as you have been all your life. You thought anger would be easier when you were held in contempt, but it isn't. These people love you, now. And they disgust you.

Actually, you're just (pleasantly) surprised that the Capitol's left you completely alone. From the broadcasts of years gone by, you figured you'd be swarmed with cameras and Capitol reporters and people with a hideous sense of fashion. You're...relieved. For almost a full year, you stay in your newly refurbished house with Bucky, never worry about getting enough to eat or your best friend dying in the coal mines or any of the things that used to plague you daily. You're tortured by a new set of tiny agonies - the dreams, the hallucinations - but it's not as constant, not as persistent, and besides which, whenever you wake up screaming, Bucky is _there_.

Until the train ride.

And then they take him away.

~~

"Here's how it goes: your victory is straight-up _embarrassing_ to the Capitol," the man in the tan jacket tells you. "You weren't supposed to win. Not even your _district_ wanted you to win. I mean, look at you. You're _clearly_ supposed to die. Wolf meat." You say nothing in response, mostly because of the gag in your mouth, but also because swearing at him has gotten your face beaten in twice in the past two minutes. Your arms are tied to the side of the chair. You've tried to kill him twice already.

"So the Capitol's gonna _change_ some stuff," he continues on, meeting your glare placidly, "fix photos of you, work on painting propaganda, stuff like that. Make you look bigger. Tougher. You know, worth something." He waves his hand at you generally. "And after the train ride, you're going to stay in the Capitol. You're a mentor, now, so that makes sense anyway. And you're gonna say that it's against your religion to have pictures taken of you," he adds importantly, "and you're gonna be _humble_. You don't wanna be in the spotlight, right?" You jerk your head at him in response. He blinks lugubriously at you, like all this is a huge waste of time. "Of course right," he continues blandly. "And then we're gonna tout you as a hero, and no one's gonna see you again." He motions at his own mouth towards the man on your left, and you can feel the gag loosen. "Any questions?"

"Why the fuck should I trust you?" You snap. You've never been so angry in your life. "Why should I do anything you tell me to? Where's Bucky? What did you do to him?"

"Woah, easy, tiger," he says, waving his hand in the air, and you grind your teeth together. "One at a time. You're going to have to trust me - and you should do what I tell you to - cause we got your friend. You do what we say? He's safe. We've got no reason to hurt him except as a bartering tool. Where is he? Well, on a train, right now." He shrugs. "He'll be in the Capitol, soon. We haven't done anything to him yet. Comply with us, and we can keep it that way." He smiles at you. You want to rip his fucking face off.

"Now, if that's all - " he stares pensively into the air. Waits dramatically, like he's on TV. " - Your train, Mr. Rogers, is outside. Miss Williams will be there to give you your cards and guide you through the different districts. She doesn't know any of this, of course. This discussion is our little secret. Let's keep it that way. Remember," he says, standing, "humility, religion, duty, sacrifice. You care about your friend, yeah? Keep your head down."

~~

If the Capitol wasn't so inherently terrible, maybe you wouldn't mind it. They get you hearing aids, and a proper inhaler, and some medicine for your stomach and your migraines and your liver, and a cane with a wider base so you can actually lean on it without making a balancing act every step of the way. They offer you a wheelchair, and you tell them to fuck off. You'll use a chair when you're dead.

But the Capitol drives its way under your skin like a fierce selection of determined insects. Its citizens, for example, are fucking terrible, hideous abominations of what humans should be. They have surgery to look like anything, claws and whiskers and bigger eyes and extra eyebrows and god knows what else. They explode with colors you can't even fucking see, get in the way of human decency. To mock them in the pitiable way you can, you let them laud your presence in a loose grey suit. It was your father's, and on you, it hangs big and ugly.

But that is all the resistance you can have. You don't know for sure if Bucky is even still alive, if he wasn't just shot in the head the minute you were out of earshot, but if he is, you'd eat your dignity just to save him. If you knew staying alive would get him killed, you'd...you'd've...

You don't know.

And you will never see him again.

~~

" _You're_ Steve Rogers?"

You've had this exact same conversation with every set of tributes for the past twenty-nine fucking years. The boy stares at you with a furrowed brow and a scowl. The girl seems less interested in you and more interested in the egg on her plate. When her eyes do occasionally swivel up to meet yours, they're open and interested, eyebrows raised, but this rarely lasts more than a few seconds. "Yes," you say, leaning with some exhaustion over your cane, "I'm Steve Rogers."

The boy scowls. "You don't _look_ like Steve Rogers," he says, petulantly. He can't be older than twelve - a stubborn age. The girl is maybe fourteen or fifteen. A young set, this year, which is going to make it especially hard on the parents, but a lot easier on the district.

"I hate to break it to you, champ," you say dryly, "but the 'Steve Rogers' you're thinking of doesn't exist. He's propaganda that the Capitol made up. I'm the only real Steve Rogers, and I look exactly like I look."

The boy's brows furrow harder. The girl looks up from the remains of her egg for a solid thirty seconds, and you look to her. She would have been very pretty when she grew up. Too bad.

"Then who _really_ won the first quarter quell?" The boy is still working.

"Me."

"Bullshit!" The boy jumps up from his seat, startling the cutlery on his plate. "There's no way you won it, you're bullshitting us! Look at you, you're...you're tiny, my grandmom could beat you up!"

"I have no doubt," you say serenely. You're not going to waste anger on a stupid kid throwing a temper-tantrum. "Now, are you going to finish your breakfast or not?"

The boy makes an impetuous cry, whirls around on his heel and storms out into another car of the train, doors opening before him and shutting behind him. You sigh gently and lower yourself into your seat. The girl blinks at you twice. "May I have another egg, please?"

You blink back. You haven't heard manners since you were forced to use them, long ago. "Help yourself," you say, waving to the various plates on the table, "the Capitol's got no shortage."

There's a long silence as the girl helps herself to another egg, and again to a second one. She's on her third when she looks up at you again. "You _are_ Steve Rogers, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Like the one in all the pictures and on the posters and everything?"

"Yes."

"How come you looked so much bigger when they took the pictures, and you're so much smaller now? Did something happen?" She looks almost worried. You smile blandly.

"No, nothing happened. But I was never that big guy," you say, shaking your head, "I've always been this small."

She furrows her brow intensely. Her eyebrows nearly touch. "So how..." she turns down to contemplate her egg, turns back. "How come you look big in those pictures and things?" She asks, and you realize she's _genuinely confused_. "I mean, I understand how in the drawings and paintings they could just draw you with more muscles and things, but there's photographs, and you look big in those, too."

You lean your head to the side. "Photographs can be fixed," you say, patiently as you can stand. "The Capitol has technology designed to fix up photographs and change the way things look."

She contemplates her egg, and then, to your discomfort, she contemplates you. She's a thinker, you realize. She's trying to figure you out. "So how did you win?" She finally asks, eyes going serious. "I mean, no offense - and obviously, you're not who you were when you were eighteen - but I don't think you beat the games with brute force or anything. So how did you do it?"

You blink. Shake your head. "Luck, I guess," you say, because it's the only truth you can tell. "I don't know. It was a long time ago, and no tributes between then and now have ever listened to my advice before."

"I don't think that's the kind of thing you forget," she says, growing steely. "I know I haven't got much of a chance, Steve, but I bet you didn't have much either, and _I don't want to die_."

She's a survivor. Like you. You bite the inside of your cheek - can't lead her down the same stupid path you went down. "You understand," you say, glancing around for a guard or the escort or something, thankfully finding no one, "that when I did it, everyone who was close to me was kidnapped or killed."

"I don't care," she says, and then, apparently realizing this is the wrong thing to say, amends "I mean I do care that that happened to you and I'm very sorry, but if you're trying to protect me, it's a lost cause. They can't hurt _me_ like that. There's no one that I love." She reaches across the table, places her hand in front of you. " _Please_ , Steve," she surges, "I want to live."

For once, you contemplate her. Brown curls, brown suit-skirt, clean white shirt in between. Completely practical. Her eyes burn straight into yours, and you realize she wouldn't have grown up to be 'pretty', she would've grow up into a fucking dragon. You sit back in your chair. "What's your name, girl?"

She sits up like she's been formally addressed. "Peggy, sir," she says, "Peggy Carter."

"Well, miss Carter," you say, "finish your egg, and then maybe we can talk about staying alive. Strategically speaking."

~~

She lives. Peggy lives, and for once in your life you know you did something right. She's shaking when she sees you next, but she's even smaller than you anyway and she buries her face in your neck. And she _thanks_ you, that's the part that confuses you - her eyes are streaked with tears and her face is crinkled out of its perpetual prettiness, but she hugs you and she thanks you like you've done her a great service. When she peels away, her makeup is everywhere, but she's smiling. "I have to go home," she tells you, sniffing, "Steve, come with me, no one's seen you in years, maybe the next tribute will listen if they know - "

"Peggy, they can't know," you say, shaking your head, "you know they can't. I have to stay here." Her face falls, and you try to smile encouragingly. It's easier to smile right now than it usually is - you don't, uh, get hugged that often. "Listen, it sounds terrible to you because all the Capitol people are in the center right now," you add, "but it's a lot easier when I'm alone. I'm the only person on the 12th floor for most of the year. And I'll come by for the train ride," you mention helpfully, "that's about a year from now. And then you'll be a mentor, and you'll see me whenever you want."

She sniffs, like she's trying to recollect her dignity. She has to, before she gets on the train back home. If you had a handkerchief, you'd give it to her - as it is, you just tap your fingers awkwardly on your cane. "You won't be alone," she says suddenly, and with all the deftness that fourteen-year-olds have, kisses you on the cheek and slips out the door.

You have no idea what that means. You don't understand young women at all.

~~

Peggy convinces you to use the wheelchair. Not all the time, she says, just sometimes. You feel like a parent being wheedled into accepting your age by a teenage daughter. The chair is convenient, if ugly. You hate it. Peggy says you will learn not to mind it, as though the wheelchair is an undesirable but unavoidable fiancee who your family will eventually force you to marry no matter what. At least the tributes center is handicap accessible, she reminds you. There are elevators everywhere, and ramps, and things like that. This doesn't really make you feel any better, but you like Peggy - she's the first person you've liked in almost thirty years - so you bite your tongue instead of telling her to fuck off, and you do what she says.

~~

They remodel the center when you're too damn old to walk around reliably anymore. The elevators are officially about half the size they used to be, cylindrical and sleek and _standing room only_. It's incredible, really, how the Capitol keeps thinking of new and inventive ways to screw you casually, like they aren't aware they're doing it. Peggy's working with the tributes - they never trust you, and she struggles with teaching - so she rarely has time to help you when she's up here. So mostly you struggle on your own, which generally means calling in favors or ordering takeout, because you can't get out to buy food yourself.

But you can't help yourself from getting hellfire pissed every once in a while, and if you've got your cane with you, you make a damn strong attempt to dent the doors. And when you're drunk, even slightly, it's easier to just swear loudly at it.

And one time, when you're going at a door like the creatures of hell are at your back, you meet one of the other tributes. Not one of your own - from the next floor down. He shouts at you from across the hall, and you shout back, maybe a little ruder than you really needed to be. At least he accepts when you tell him to get closer - your eyesight's always been bad, but now it's just atrocious. You refuse glasses, but those are probably inevitable too.

The boy - more like a young man, but you always think of the tributes as children - is black, which almost startles you. The Districts are very pointedly segregated by race, you've noticed in years gone by, and there are almost no black people in either District 12 or the Capitol. He's very...well, he's seventeen or eighteen, but he might grow up to be very handsome. He's also uncomfortably tall. If you could stand up straight, you probably wouldn't come up to his shoulders. But he wants to help you - he's pointedly eager about doing whatever he can - and he's polite, and it kind of startles you. You haven't seen manners in the games since Peggy.

He gets you downstairs, you get his name. Sam Wilson, he said, you think. Right, Sam Wilson, District 11. You don't know what he was doing on the 12th floor, but you decide it's better not to ask. He's willing to learn - totally open to new information - respectful - you could rely on him. You could rely on him to win, even, unlike the new stubborn set of idiot tributes District 12 gave you. And he's so helpful and willing. You want him to win. You could make him win, if he listens.

~~

The glass bowls are enormous, and they both hold a single slip of paper, resting at the bottom. Miss Williams stands between you, as blond and pink as she was fifty years ago today, only far more tired. When she smiles, her lips seem to part up and down, rather than across her face - as they always do, every year, at the reaping. You almost suspect she doesn’t enjoy it.

“As always, ladies first.”

Peggy is stonefaced, arms folded crisply behind her back. She is prim and put together and ironed into something clean and _she deserved so much better_. She doesn’t glance at you when you pull yourself to a pained stand, leaning heavily on your cane, and you don’t look to her, either.

_You won’t be alone._

~~

And so we turn our gaze forwards - onwards and upwards. 


	11. The Reaping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Here we go! The beginning of the Actual Storyline has ARRIVED, my friends. Thanks for sticking with it to here! Let's see how it goes.

Properly, this should be chapter one - the beginning of a story, the turning of fresh pages. But as she stood, back straight, arms folded, waiting for her name to be called, Peggy couldn’t help but feel that this made for a very poor beginning.

The crowd’s eyes were fixated on Steve, people nudging each other and whispering “ _That’s him, that’s him,_ ” something like confusion boiling over the crowd in a miasma. But he’s so _old_ , she could hear them beginning to think, _and so small. Was he really always so small? That’s just what the Capitol’s like._ She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, even when she could hear him struggling into a standing position with his cane. The temptation to bolt across the space dividing them to give him her arm, to hold him up straight, to keep his eyes up and his stance tall, was all but unbearable.

“Peggy Carter,” Miss Williams sighed, and Peggy stepped forward.

She did not cry. She did not have to. Instead, she looked out over the people of the District, over the mountains far beyond, the dark black clouds of smoke billowing up from the mines.

_I’m going to miss this place,_ she thought. Her mouth would not say it.

~~

If those from District 12 were lucky in anything, it was this: there was no surprise. The reaping was taken from the pool of existing victors - and in the 12th District, that meant the entire pool. They were walking to their death, and they knew it from the second the quell was announced, but the anticipation, the _possibility_ of survival, was not a hope that could be ripped away from them.

This was not afforded to any other district. Even District 9, low in victors as they were, had something like wiggle room for the men. Darcy, on the other hand, was scowling bitterly. If only her tribute had made it, last year - well. No point in dwelling on that now. There were two male victors, and…just her. Odds of survival? Not looking so good.

She’d gotten her Big Feelings out the night before the reaping. Now, she stuck her hands in her pockets and slouched as obstinately as possible. Through a dingy pair of glasses, she squinted out at the crowd. District 9 wasn’t a _complete_ shithole, she decided, thoughtlessly counting the peacekeepers around the mob of citizens. She’d grown up there - gone to school there. Dated a boy there. Lost boys there. Dated _girls_ there, lost -

“Darcy Lewis,” the Capitol chaperone said, over the loudspeakers.

“What?” Darcy jerked her head up from the rock she’d been toeing. “Oh, uh, oh. Right. Okay.” Shuffled forward. Chewed some of the hair in her mouth thoughtfully.

“And now for the boys,” the young man said, and reached over into the huge glass globe. “For the male tribute, we have…Richard O’Dowd.”

One of the men threw himself to the ground, weeping - Darcy crinkled her nose. “Get a hold of yourself, dude,” she offered sympathetically, then turned her eyes out to the crowd. “Can you believe I used to date that guy?” She murmured, more to herself than anything. “Gross.”

~~

Loki is still young, still in his prime, hair glistening in the sunlight and clothes ironed neatly. He has a hope of survival in the arena. His mother, on the other hand, is aged, worn down, nearly worn out completely.

Frigga had won her games by setting traps and hiding in wait, something her body no longer had the strength for. Her son, however, had won through trickery and cleverness. Within the first days of _his_ games, he formed an alliance with the weakest tributes, kept them close. Even the weak, in great numbers, could take down the careers - and when he no longer needed them, they were easy enough to turn on themselves. Of the two plans, Frigga knows which one’s going to work. She's lived long enough, she knows. Evolution encourages her to protect her son, instead.

But here, the tributes already know each other, already have friendships and alliances. He was relatively new in their company, and mostly unconnected - relied on Frigga to show him the way. Between them, she props a small screen up and peers through the different District broadcasts. “The careers are the most dangerous, of course,” she says, shrugging, “and it looks like your brother will be making an appearance.” She glances to her boy’s stiff back, rigid shoulders. “Will that be an issue for you?”

He stares across the train car, narrows his eyes - smiles. “Of course not.”

~~

She’d come a long way from her first reaping, just the year previously - Maria wasn’t even tempted to run for the forests on the outskirts of the District. An hour before the time, she said goodbye to her parents, to her baby sister who wouldn’t remember her but who would grow up without the terror of the games as long as she lived, to her room, to her cats. To the plants. To the fish.

She found Nick waiting for her on his back porch, staring distantly into nothing. His eyepatch was in his hands, his glass eye an unnerving white. “Do you smoke, Hill?”

“I’m only sixteen, sir,” she said, sitting next to him on the old wooden steps, “I can’t.”

“I didn’t ask if you _could_ , Hill,” he replied, “I asked if you _do_.”

“Is that why you gave me a cigarette case?”

“Hm?” His focus was on his own case, his own lighter, his own smoke. Maria suspected he wasn’t much interested in talking to her. Too bad. She pressed on, anyway.

“A cigarette case,” she repeated, picking at the peeling blue wood of the porch’s floorboards, “you gave me one for my birthday. Was it because you thought I smoked?”

“I figured you’d start, eventually,” he said, sighed out a dark cloud. “We all do. Some of us faster than others - smoking or drinking.” Glanced at her, carefully. “Of the two, smoking seems safer.”

“Well, I don’t,” Maria said, shortly. “And I don’t think I will, now. There’s not enough time left.”

They were both very quiet for a very long time. Maria and Nick were both incredibly practiced at quiet - very comfortable in it. And although neither of them would ever say it, they admired it deeply about each other.

Even on the reaping stand, Maria stood quietly as her name was called, blood draining out of her face until she was sheet-white. Fury did not.

“And for the male tributes - “

“I volunteer.” Took three steps forward, rested a palm on Maria’s shoulder. “I volunteer as tribute.”

~~

“Clint, _no,_ ” Natasha whispered, and it was the closest thing to desperate she had ever been. “Please. I need you to live.”

“This is _my decision_ , Tasha,” he replied, and took her hand. “We’re going down together. You said so yourself.”

She searched his face, desperately, for a hint of hesitation, resistance, logic, fear - found nothing. “I can’t let you do this to yourself,” she said, “I can’t let you die for me.”

“Then you better go down first,” he grinned, and raised their hands above their heads in something like triumph.

Natasha had offered to volunteer herself if Clint was sent in as a tribute. It hadn’t occurred to her that it might have gone the other way. She could’ve kicked herself.

~~

“Oh, and that’s Sam Wilson,” says Frigga, amused. “All the victors _love_ him, and _especially_ the District 12 tributes. He’s going to be fiercely protected, I can tell you that much - Carter might be pretty, but she’s dangerous. And the Capitol just _loves_ the two of them. They’ve been anticipating a relationship announcement for years now.”

“And Rogers?” Loki is desperately trying to sound casual - but even among the tributes, Steve Rogers is something of a legend. He avoided the public eye like the plague, shrouded himself in mystery. If there was anything to anticipate for the games, it was him.

Frigga, on the other hand, has _met_ Rogers. She shakes her head and scoffs. “Don’t even _think_ about Rogers,” she chides, “he’s ancient by now. Half-dead. Just a tiny little wrap of skin and bones looking for ways to die. In fact,” she adds, brightening, “if you want to take out Carter, that’s probably the way to do it. She _dotes_ on him.”

“If she’s as deadly as you say she is, she probably won’t fall for that,” he replies, somewhat downtrodden. “Women like that - they know who to take care of and who to leave behind. If things get really heated, I’d bet she’d abandon him.”

His mother makes a noncommittal noise. “We’ll see,” she says, gently, “we’ll see…”

~~

An uncomfortable silence settled over the train car occupied by the District 3 tributes. Dr. Banner glances up at his companion, then looks back out the window. His memories of the reaping itself are already bleary, but he remembers distinctly that his companion had buckled under the pressure. District 3 didn’t have a LOT of tributes, but it had enough that there was always…hope. Hope has a powerful grip on humanity, he thinks, idly, as trees rushed by.

There was the sound of gentle fidgeting before she spoke. “You’re Dr. Banner, aren’t you?”

He glances back at her, smiles thinly. “Oh, uh, yeah,” he shrugs, “I mean, I guess. I don’t have a proper PhD or anything.”

“I guess you can’t really get it, out here,” she says, “I’m Dr. Foster. I love your work.”

“Dr. Foster?” A glimmer of a memory sparkled in his mind. “I’ve read some of your papers on astrophysics. It’s not really my area, but the sheer volume of work you produce is amazing - I’ve used some of your methods for separating control groups, myself.”

“I don’t think that’s what you meant to say,” she replied, smiling, “that didn’t make that much sense. The control groups thing.”

He furrowed his brow, then nodded. “You’re probably right, sorry. I’m a little out of it right now - memory problems - it comes with age, I guess."

~~

Tony didn’t weep for himself. He wept when he got the call from Pepper.

“Coulson and me,” she said quietly. There was a long, long silence. “Please say something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a sniff, “like anything. Anything, anything, but please say _something_.”

“Banner volunteered.”

The silence was deafening. They both held their phones and grit their teeth and let sorrow swallow them like a great and terrible beast.

~~

“You’re the most recent victor, which makes you the outsider,” Fury says, pacing calmly along the train car. “The other tributes - they’ve been in this for a long time. Most of them have friends, rivalries - they know each other. You’re gonna have to wriggle in around all that.”

“You’ve seen me with people, Fury, you know I don’t wriggle,” Maria replies, leaning her forearms on her knees, “I’m terrible at reading them and I can never figure out anything about anyone. Social cues aren’t exactly my forte.”

“That’s why I’m gonna help,” he says flatly, “I made a powerpoint.”

His face is so stern and angry that Maria has to wonder how serious he is. He can’t have made a powerpoint. He _can’t_ have.

But he did.

“We’re gonna go by districts from one to twelve, it’ll keep things less scrambled,” he says, and produces a pointlessly tiny remote from somewhere inside his coat. Behind him, the train car’s TV screen (who needs a TV in a train car? People in the Capitol, apparently,) blinks on.

“Tony Stark?” Maria says, eyebrows raising. “That’s…unfortunate.”

“For him, maybe,” Fury replies, glancing at the screen. “Stark was the victor of the last quarter quell, and as everyone with a TV and at least one eye knows, he’s the absolute Capitol favorite. Not exactly their darling - he’s a lot older, now, and not as cute as he’d need to be. Won his games by rigging traps all over the stadium. Even in his own games, though, he wasn’t exactly known for a bloodthirsty attitude. Stark’s a coward at heart - spent most of his time hiding in a cave.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Maria shrugs. Personally, she thinks cowardice is the secret to success in the games, but this is not an opinion she will voice out loud.

“It _did_ ,” he replies, almost reluctantly, “and that’s why you have to be careful - always keep track of who’s still in the arena. Stark exploding out of the bushes right when you think you’re safe is _not_ how you wanna die.”

~~

“Sam called me,” Peggy says quietly. Steve does not say anything - he has learned, over the years, that very few things require his words. He lowers his eyes, instead. “I told him we could meet up for dinner when we reach the Capitol.” She swallows. “I thought it’d be nice.”

“Yes,” he says, after a pause, “it _would_ be nice.” Another pause. “Should we invite Fury? We haven’t seen him in a while. I need to catch up.”

“Sam’s terrified of Fury.”

“Well, all the more reason to invite him,” he says, something lively springing into his voice, “got to learn to get over that _sometime_.”

~~

“…Alright, so, District 7,” Fury says, clicking to the next slide. There’s one of those weird spirally transition panels. Maria decides not to comment on this. “Of all the Districts, this is the one I’d suggest you exercise the most caution with. Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov - best friends, won the games right after each other, kind of inseparable. They’re going to be one hell of a team.”

“What’s wrong with her legs?” Maria has mostly broken the “no interruptions” rule that Fury usually tries to keep up during lectures - she’s more fixated on the stilts Romanov appears to have attached to her knees.

“Double prosthetics,” Fury says, crossing his arms, “she lost both of her legs from the knees down after a run in with hydrofluoric acid in the games. Destroyed the soft tissue in her calves. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that’s a weakness - she can still run and climb faster than a monkey, and certainly faster than anyone else in this arena. No, Romanov’s weakness is going to be Barton.” He taps the man on the screen. “He’s still in bad shape from his games - hallucinates something awful, tries to cut himself off from most of the victors. He can shoot a bow and arrow into anything in the arena from anywhere, but only if he can see clearly _see_. They’ve been best friends since childhood. She’s not going to abandon him for anything, and that’s where we swoop in.”

Maria thinks on this as Fury goes on to the next slide, blinks at the screen. “Isn’t that…”

“Pepper Potts, District 8,” he asserts, nodding, “good eye. Tony Stark’s fiancé. That’s not gonna go down well in the Capitol - Pepper and Tony are a fan favorite.”

“You’ve mentioned the Potts Treatment,” Maria says, slowly, “what did she do?”

Nick tucks his hands in his pockets and glances at his shoes. “She turned the tributes against each other before the games even _started_ ,” he says, finally. “If she says something to you before the game, disregard anything and everything she tries. She’s not tough - but she’ll be well-protected in the arena, especially with Stark as her backup.”

Maria’s eyebrows make a dive for her nose. “And who’s the male tribute?”

“Coulson? Don’t worry about Coulson, he’s - “ Fury is cut off by the sound of his phone receiving a message. “You wanna go to dinner with District 12?”

“District 12?” In spite of herself, she swallows hard. “Isn’t that - “

“Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter,” he says, flatly, “yeah. That’s them."


	12. Dinner

Maria really wishes she didn’t startle so easily. She’d gotten a little more practiced at keeping it under wraps in the past few months, but it was still noticeable, and it broadcasted her naïveté to every other victor currently in the Capitol.

The restaurant is just another example of Capitol frivolity - fountains bracing the entrance, golden-threaded tapestries burning out images of coiling dragons, fishtanks the size of aquarium viewing halls - and already, fitted snugly into a sharp black suit that itched along the shoulder blades, Maria is ready to turn on her heel and run for the enormous double-doors. But she can’t - tall, dominant, directly to her left, Fury stands like a regal, noble statue, looking down on the citizens below his care and finding them desperately lacking. She can’t make a dash with his support right there - so she bites the inside of her cheek and follows their waitress, keeping her eyes on the tables around them. One of these tables, she knows, has two of the greats of the arena, one of the Capitol’s best kept secrets. And she’s supposed to eat with them.

And that’s when the double-take hits her.

Pushed by an impulse stronger than any control she might’ve had, Maria grabs Fury by the arm and wheels him around, back to their waitress. “ _That’s_ Steve Rogers?” She hisses, maybe a little louder than she needs to.

“I _told_ you he was old,” Fury says, without a pause, “don’t be rude.”

With one arm, he sweeps Maria back around to face the District 12 tributes and smiles thinly, holds a hand out to the young woman across the table. “Miss Carter,” he addresses her, leaving Maria spinning, “pleasure to see you again.”

“A pleasure, of course,” she replies, an equally thin smile on her face as she shakes his hand.

“I apologize for our behavior,” he adds, and Maria feels a hot sting of embarrassment on her neck, “this is my associate, Miss Maria Hill. She’s…still learning.”

God. If there was a way to call on the gods responsible for letting the floor open and swallow a person whole, Maria would’ve done it a dozen and a half times by now. She hurriedly offers her hand to Miss Carter, who takes it with a work-worn palm and a smile. “Maria Hill,” she says, “although I…guess you already know that. I apologize for my - behavior - I was…surprised.”

“No hard feelings,” Miss Carter says, her voice a polite, stiff line that indicates that maybe there _are_ hard feelings, but it would be improper to bring them up, “we get that sort of reaction a lot from tributes. Besides - “ something that looks like a real smile cracks through, “Sam isn’t really on his best behavior, either.”

“Quit being pleasant and sit down,” snaps a thin, unfamiliar voice, and Maria’s eyes snap to the sitting figure instantly. Thin, slouched, white-haired and spidery, dressed in starched whites and blacks, eyes obscured by their focus on the menu in skeletal hands. _Steve Rogers,_ she realizes with some finality, and sits down.

“Sorry, sir,” she says briskly, and peels open the folds of the menu at her place. She isn’t hungry, but she has to look at something - it’s that, or her eyes will get stuck on Rogers. For someone so small, he certainly is magnetic. In her periphery, Maria is aware of Fury settling into a chair and Miss Carter rearranging her dress to allow ease of movement. It’s black and gold and beautiful, and Maria gets her eyes caught on _that_ , instead. Fury leans past her to say something to Rogers, and she clears her throat carefully before diving in. “Excuse me, Miss Carter - who’s Sam?”

“Sam Wilson, District 11,” she replies promptly, “he’s a friend of ours - gets a little skittish around Nick. You understand.”

Maria doesn’t, really - even knowing Fury’s history, she never finds herself “skittish” around him - but she nods carefully. “So is he on his way?”

“Well, he was here earlier, before we told him you two were coming,” Miss Carter explains, glancing around the restaurant interior, “so…I think he might be throwing up in the bathroom right now. Not sure.”

~~

Sam is, in fact, in the bathroom, though he’s not throwing up. Anymore.

First, he tried to escape the bathroom through the window, but it turned out the “window” was actually a hologram designed to LOOK like a window, and which was actually a solid wall. _Then_ he’d done his panic vomiting. Now, though, he’s just trying to clean his mouth out. Toothpaste tabs and mouthwash cups litter the sink counter.

Gargling furiously, Sam isn’t sure who he’s angrier with - Steve for suggesting this, or Peggy for not _telling_ him before he got stuck out here - but being angry isn’t going to make dinner go faster. At some point, he thinks, spitting Listeriene aggressively into the sink, he’s going to have to go back out there, order, and make small talk with Nick motherfucking Fury.

Which, to be honest, would be pretty cool, if Nick motherfucking Fury wasn’t _literally the most terrifying human being on the planet._

Sam washes his hands twice, straightens his tie uncomfortably, and quickly practices not-looking-scared in the mirror before biting the bullet and making his way back to the table. Fury is already there, and a dark-haired woman Sam doesn’t recognize, but before he can change his mind and scamper back to the bathroom, Steve glances up at him over the menu and gives him that little almost-smile. Right. Sam could make friendly with Steve motherfucking Rogers - why should Nick motherfucking Fury be any different? Other than the whole, um, ambiance.

With that in mind, and a whole lot of fake confidence built up in the bathroom of a faux Chinese restaurant, Sam sweeps in to grab the last chair, between Steve and…god, she looks familiar. “Hi, sorry I’m late,” he says quickly, extends a hand to the young woman - the _very_ young woman. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she wasn’t over twenty. “I don’t think we’ve met. Sam Wilson, District 11.”

“Maria Hill, District 5,” she says dryly, “also, I think you’re going to get yelled at if you don’t sit down quickly. We all just got a lecture.”

Sam follows her gaze to Steve, laughs, and lowers himself into his chair. “Yeah, that’s kinda his thing. It’s nothing personal.” In return, he glances past her to - Fury. “So you’re - is it stressful working with - District 5?” He asks, voice lowering.

Maria glances to Fury, who’s far too wrapped up an argument with Miss Carter about stocks to pay any attention to the table’s new arrival, turns back. “Nah,” she says, shrugging, “I mean, he’s really on top of everything - kind of an organizational monster - so I don’t have to worry about stuff like that.”

Their voices dim and quiet under the companionable chatter of the three older victors at the table. The menu is poorly organized, and it takes up most of their attention, even after every order at the table is collected by a smiling but clearly underpaid waitress. Around them, the din of Capitol residents swallows them as one by one, Steve, Nick, and Peggy cease speaking. There’s a beat of silence. Then - 

“This quarter quell is going to be the end of the games,” Peggy says, quietly. “We’ve been talking about it and we want your help.”

~~

Banner doesn’t want to leave his room. Tony is willing to compromise - Pepper is not.

“These are the last couple days we have together, Tony,” she snaps into her bluetooth as she carefully presses an extra set of eyelashes onto her face. “If you want to spend your time in Banner’s room, sitting on the carpet and getting drunk on cheap wine, that’s _fine_ with me, but Natasha and I made plans to go to that new French place _months_ ago, our reservation’s tonight, and if you aren’t willing to come I’m sure I can find someone else to take your seat.”

“What do you want me to do, Pepper, you want me to drag him out of his room and put him under the public eye like that?” Tony’s voice crackles back at her through the earpiece, and she sighs, rolls her eyes. She hates when he gets like this - she can hear him chewing dried fruit. _Really._ “I can _do_ that, I just think it’ll be a little easier for everyone if you just - why would you need to find someone to take my seat? Just tell the hostess you’re missing someone. We always do that with your mom in the Districts.”

“It’s not that kind of place, Tony,” Pepper sighs, turns her head to push an earring through, “if you don’t have the right number of people as you reserved for, they won’t let you take your table.”

“What? That’s bullshit. Look the hostess in the eye and ask if she knows who you are. Like, we’re about to die,” he adds, pauses to add more food to his gaping maw, “they can’t deny us service if we’re gonna die for their entertainment. We only have so long. Bucket list.”

“I don’t want to argue with you about this, Tony, I just want to go to dinner,” she says, “I’m sure Rhodey would be happy to go if you don’t want to be there.”

“You’re saying my name a lot,” he replies, and Pepper blinks in spite of herself, “you only do that when you get worried. Are you worried about me?”

“I’m not worried about you,” she says, actively swallowing his name back down, “you’re an adult, you can do whatever you want. I’m - I’m irritated with you. That’s all.”

“Pepper,” he says, voice suddenly going serious, “I’m going to be fine. Banner’s not dangerous - he’s just a ball of nerves. You’ll like him. I promise.”

Pepper is quiet for a moment. She stares at herself in the mirror, swallows. “I have to go,” she says, finally, “I told Nat I’d meet her at 7:30, I don’t want to be late. I’ll talk to you later tonight.” Her eyes flit down to her hand, catch on a glint of emerald - “you coming up tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there. Talk to you later.”

The line goes dead, and Pepper stares at herself in the mirror. She presses her fingers to the ring thoughtlessly - swears she could feel a chilling wind and ice water all down her bones.

She grabs a fur wrap when she goes out.

~~

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Natasha says quietly. On the other side of the table, Clint is retying his tie for the dozenth time. It’s been perfect every single time. “Pepper would understand. We could just stay here.”

Clint doesn’t say anything for a moment. Fastens the knot up to his neck again. “We have to get out of this room,” he says, “besides, if I don’t try French stuff now, I never will, right?”

She thinks he’s trying to smile, but it’s hard to tell with Clint, sometimes. “We’re all in the same boat,” she tries, “no one would think it was weakness.” She knows this is a lie - every Victor save maybe Hill knows how bad the hallucinations are, and she can feel them circling District 7 like sharks in water. She knows he can too.

“We need allies,” he replies, voice suddenly firmer, resolute. “Pepper and Tony have different skills, and they’re skills that we don’t have. We need them. You need them.”

“Don’t say that,” she says softly, “don’t think like that - you can’t do that to yourself.”

“Only one person is walking out of the arena,” he snaps, “and it’s not going to be me. It _could_ be you. If it was going to be anyone, I’d want it to be you.”

Natasha crosses her arms and looks away, out the window into the city-lit night. Talking is not her forte. Neither are emotions. Together, the two are an entirely impossible task - she sighs heavily through it. “Pepper’s probably waiting,” she says, not looking at him, “we should get moving. Don’t want to leave her in whatever insane heels she’s procured.”

~~

“The end of the games,” Maria says flatly. “What, you wanna petition? Get enough signatures to shut the Capitol’s favorite event of the year down?”

“ _Hill_ ,” Fury says forcefully, and she reigns it in.

“Sorry,” she says, and stares down at her empty plate. She doesn’t catch Rogers staring at her intently.

Miss Carter clears her throat carefully. “I wish I could say you were entirely incorrect,” she says, lips thin, “but it is, in fact, something like that. Only much, much more violent.”

Sam glances up, stares at her - she has never spoken like this to his knowledge, never sounded so pinched, taught. He knows Peggy like a sister, always poised, always careful, always aware of her surroundings, but under a stiff facade, tonight she is something else. There is something indescribably angry behind her words.

Steve has always called her a dragon - until tonight, Sam never understood what that meant. Tonight, it makes sense. He can feel the heat of the fire burning in her radiating across the table, and he isn’t sure if he’s afraid or inspired.

“Riots,” she continues, apparently unaware of the shift in atmosphere at the table, “they’re already springing up through the Districts. They’ve been popping up over the past few years, and the Capitol’s tried to keep as little coverage of them as possible - they think if they just ignore it, it’ll go away. But we’re not going away - we’re not going to play the game right this time.”

Even with one eye, Fury has perfected a bone-chilling stare with an intensity that rivals Rogers. He swivels it on Carter now - she does not flinch. “This is some serious stuff you’re talking about, Miss Carter,” he says, voice dangerously quiet, “riots aren’t games. People are going to die - _civilians_ are going to die.”

“With all due respect, Fury, people are dying already,” she replies, “and not just in the games - people are starving to death in District 12, they’re being worked to death in 11, there are public executions up in the careers, where people might even feel _safe_ , we are - “

“ _With all due respect,_ Carter,” he rails over her, “people are dying in my District, too. I am intimately acquainted with death, especially at my age. I’ve seen riots. I’ve incited riots. It doesn’t do shit except get a whole lot of people a whole lot of dead. So if you have a plan to incite that’s going to actually _do_ something, I’d certainly like to hear it.”

It’s like watching a tornado and a hurricane wrap around each other, Maria thinks, or like two enormous waves crashing together, meeting on the deck of a sinking ship. She does not dare interfere - the gaze between Fury and Carter is white-hot. If she waved a hand between their faces, she is sure it would be sliced in two.

“Riots, thankfully, are not the whole plan,” she says slowly, “in fact, they aren’t featured in the plan until very late in the game. We start in the arena - it starts with us.” She seems undaunted by the fact that “us” is exactly five people. Maria decides not to interject with this. “We start the games off normally - playing the way the Capitol wants to see us doing it. Give it a couple days.” She taps a finger on the table once - twice. “And then we break the arena.”

“Woah, woah, woah, okay, I’m sorry, I think we need to back up for a minute,” Sam interjects, and just like that, the razor-sharp contact between Carter and Fury is gone as they swivel to blink at him. “I think we need to back up, like, seven _thousand feet_. How is this a plan? You wanna break the arena? Okay, number one, _how_ , and number two, _what then?_ How does this lead to rioting, and _why is that even a good thing_ again?”

“And what’s going to stop the Capitol from just fixing the arena and putting us all back in there afterwards?” Maria’s voice is calm, and her eyes are fixed on the tablecloth - secretly, she feels like spinning her wheels like Sam, but panic won’t help in this situation. She knows that. Her eyes flick up to Carter. “What’s the end goal? Start there and work backwards.”

Carter blinks once - twice - smiles slowly. Glances at Fury, who has the face of a father desperately trying not to look proud. It is Rogers, this time, who speaks.

“End goal is, we take down the Capitol and take Snow out of power.”

“Okay,” Maria says, looks to him, “how?”

His eyes, which have been fixed to his own folded hands for most of the evening, flick up and meet hers. It’s like staring into the sun. “With help,” he says, “from everyone.”

~~

It turns out that Tony’s right. Just being aggressive with the maître d’hôtel can pretty much get you anything you want when you’re famous.

Pepper is generally a fan of being very polite, and understanding, and working with other people. It makes them much easier to manipulate. But tonight, she is all out of patience.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we can seat you if you don’t have all the members of your party with you this evening,” he says when she explains the situation.

“No,” Pepper says, “you _can_ seat us, and you _will_ seat us. Unlike many of your customers, our time is _very_ limited, and we’re about to be on television a _lot_. I have no issue with slandering your restaurant in my last few days alive. Get us into our seats or I will ream you off the face of the earth.”

They get the table. Natasha has the decency to look impressed. “Go Pepper,” she says quietly, as she shifts into her seat, “I didn’t know you had that in you.”

“It’s new,” she says, smiling politely, “I picked it up from Tony.”

“What, Tony does that?”

“No, Tony needs a little of that every once in a while,” she says, and Clint snorts into his palm, “usually when he’s coming down to see my parents.”

“Good to know he has _someone_ to kick his ass every now and then,” Natasha says, nodding, “I’d hate to see it swell up to the same size as his head.” Pepper laughs. “So where _is_ Stark, anyway?”

Pepper shakes her head and sighs. “He’s attached himself to Banner recently,” she says, “I guess he decided to eat with District 3 tonight.”

“But he’s still…”

“Yes - he’s with us,” she affirms. “I don’t know about Banner, but Tony seems convinced that he’ll be an ally too. A fairly weak one, too - the planning type. Traps, not weapons. So…”

“So we can get rid of him pretty easily when we’re done,” Clint finishes for her. “Look, Potts, I know you and I like you, but I think we should just establish that when it comes to information gathering, I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.” He glances at Natasha, who looks between the two of them, then nods.

“You’re a genius, but - it’s best to be honest - that makes the two of us a little nervous.”

Pepper glances between the two of them, flicking through a few emotions mentally, but settles on a smile. “I knew you two were a smart choice,” she sighs, “Tony was worried about it - he thought you guys were all fight and no thought.”

“I can see where he’d get that,” Clint says, unflinching, “I blame Tasha.”

“Wow, don’t hold back,” Natasha replies, but she’s smiling, “so that makes - the three of us, Stark, and Banner? I’d say that’s pretty solid. Who else could we get? Fury?”

“No dice,” Clint says, peering down at the menu, “Fury’s got the new kid holding him down - plus, he’s going for District 12. We really don’t need that kind of weight.”

“Carter could be good,” Pepper says brightly.

“Nah, she’s basically tying herself to Rogers. I can’t deal with that.”

“So take Rogers out of the equation,” Pepper says, unmoved, “he’s really not going to last that long - if we set Carter up to see us as potentials, when Rogers goes down, we might get her _and_ Fury.”

Natasha looks at Clint. Clint looks at Pepper. Pepper looks at Natasha.

Clint sighs. “So who’s hungry?”

~~

Maria’s heart is heavy in the car home. She is afraid to look at Fury - she knows if she does, she will let her feelings loose on him.

“You impressed Rogers,” Fury says, after a while. Maria can think of nothing to say in response. “That’s pretty rare. He’s hard to get any sort of rise out of, these days.”

“What about Sam?” She says it because she thinks it needs to be said. Sam hasn’t come up in their conversation yet - until today, she didn’t know who he was. “What do you think of him?”

“He’s a good kid,” Fury replies, shrugging, “runs meetings for some of the more…traumatized victors. Tries to help them figure out how to carry that weight. Says we have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Do you go to them?”

There’s a long pause. Maria’s eyes are fixed on the upholstery at their feet, head pressed against the window. Fury sighs with a sort of defeated finality. “It’s too late for me,” he says, “I’ve got too much weight now. It’s not a matter of carrying it, just how much there is.”

Maria feels the rumble against her head where the cold glass shakes and bumps her. “ _You’ve got to go to the lonesome valley,_ ” she murmurs, just loud enough for Fury to hear it. She can hear a contented hum in reply. “ _You’ve got to go there by yourself…_ ”

“ _Nobody else can go there for you,_ ” He replies, voice low and rumbling, meeting hers in the still air. “ _You got to go there by yourself._ ”

She doesn’t know the right harmonies, or where to put her voice when his sinks to an intimidating rumble, but it has never been about the song. It is about the voices, and who they belong to, and where they are. It used to be, he thinks, his grandfather on the bass, his father on the baritone, and himself on the tenor - but with age, his tone sinks to anchor them both - and in Maria, he thinks he can hear two more joining around him. If he closes his eye, he can see the old cedar table his great-great-grandfather made, peeling blue wallpaper, the sickly scent of turpentine and iodine from the kitchen and a low-hanging light - 

And just maybe, he can make out the forms of two old sons of bitches, taking a pause from their eternal arguments to breathe with the voice of their ancestors, and to lie in the shade of the trees.

  
_You got to ask the Lord’s forgiveness,_   
_Nobody else, nobody else can do that for you,_   
_You got to go to the lonesome valley, yes sir,_   
_You got to go there by yourself._   



	13. Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, all! Sorry for the long delay of this chapter - I wholeheartedly hoist the blame on finals. I hope you can look forward to regular updates over the summer.
> 
> That said, hope you can all get in on the petty alliance train, here. Because here it goes.

Tony was right - Pepper _does_ like Bruce. Like most of the Capitol, her opinion of him was shaped almost entirely on word of mouth - that he was a hermit-geinus, that he’d been pointlessly violent in his games, that he was completely uncivilized and without manners - and whatever assumptions she’d made based on that, they’d been entirely untrue. When Tony introduces him, and Pepper finds herself met with a nervous, borderline-embarrassed smile and a cautiously outstretched hand, she is immensely relieved, and shakes it in an instant.

“Doctor Banner,” she says, smiling with as many teeth as possible, “Tony’s told me so many things about you.”

Bruce laughs gently, like he’s afraid to be too loud - glances to Tony - looks back. “All good things, I hope,” he replies, “but please, just call me Bruce - I’m, uh, not sure if I actually have a proper doctorate.”

Pepper nods - she’s heard about the memory thing from Tony, too. “In that case - would you be willing to show me what you do?” She motions to the rest of the training room. “Anything you’d like."

~~

“Romanov.”

“Fury.”

It’s kind of like watching two sharks circling each other, Clint thinks as he adjusts his hearing aids to get a clearer tone. Possibly the two deadliest players on the field have met in the center of the training room, teeth and ambitions bared, ready to make the kind of small-talk that sends weaker men running for the hills. He turns his attention to his bow, ears trained expertly behind him.

Pepper can’t be trusted to gather information - she makes a killer soufflé, but this week, you couldn’t pay anyone to eat it. Clint is gathering information himself, to share with Natasha. He’s not leaving her in anyone else’s hands, not when it comes to this.

“A little bird told me you were at dinner with Carter last night,” she starts carefully - Pepper is the queen of emotional conquest, but Natasha’s learned a few things in the past few years. Fury’s a harder nut to crack than most. Going to him first is ambitious. Maybe too ambitious. “Date night before the end of the world?”

“The games aren’t the end of the world,” he replies evenly, “just our lives. Besides, Carter’s a little young for me.”

“But you were _there_ ,” she says, voice dangerously soft, “so if you weren’t there to play nice, what _were_ you doing?”

“I happen to like Chinese food. I spent most of my dinner eating. What about you?” His eye flashes dangerously. “Does French get your metabolism going?”

“Nothing gets my metabolism going.”

“Not even Miss Potts?”

Without looking, Clint knows that Fury’s touched a nerve. Natasha’s sensitive about all of her friendships, but the one with Pepper is especially delicate. Time to start moving on the rotation. Getting caught eavesdropping here could be deadly.

The marksmanship area of the training arena is currently occupied by one Peggy Carter, under observation by Sam Wilson. Clint tries not to get involved, but he doesn’t have a chance - the second Sam spots him, that’s it.

“Clint! He-ey, man,” Sam says, grinning, arms open as he approaches. “Good to see you again,” he grins, claps a hand on Clint’s shoulder. Clint tries not to smile, but it’s hard not to with Sam - the man is like a beam of pure sunlight.

“Hey, Wilson,” he replies, “good seeing you too - bad luck with this quarter quell thing, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, smile slipping as he glances back towards Peggy, “I think I’d say less ‘bad luck’ and more…” His voice drifts off, as though he can’t find an adequate comparison, then shakes his head and smiles again. “So how’ve you been doing this past month?”

Because of the quarter quell thing, the Capitol buildings that normally host Sam’s meetings have been shut down for renovations - the equivalent of missing four meetings in a month has done some serious damage. Clint opens his mouth to make a smart comment to those effects - then quickly closes it again. Sam _was_ a friend before the games. Now, he’s better poised to bleed Clint out than anyone else going into the arena. He can’t know how bad it’s getting. He _can’t_. “Fine,” he says, instead, “weirdly enough. Natasha’s been over a lot - we’ve been, um, figuring some stuff out - I think I’m ready to beat this thing.”

Sam smiles and nods, but he knows that face - he knows that hesitation. The worst thing Clint can do right now is cut himself off, but the atmosphere around them is dangerous, and he understands the fear. “That’s great,” he says instead, smiles as broadly as he can, “if anything changes - you know where to find me. Yeah?” He holds up a fist - Clint pauses, then bumps it with his own.

The pinging noises indicating the end of a session beam out from the marksmanship room, and both men turn to watch Peggy descend the stairs on steady feet. She glances towards them, nods in acknowledgment. “Station’s open,” she calls over her shoulder, and sets her bow back into its place on the rack. 

“She’s pretty tough, huh?” Clint asks, more conversational than anything, as he moves to pick up a bow. He wants to figure out the weight of the pieces that’ll be in the arena.

“I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alleyway, that’s for sure,” Sam says back, laughs. Clint doesn’t.

“So, uh…” he rubs the back of his neck, bow in the other hand. “Where’s…you know, the other guy?”

“Rogers isn’t interested in training,” Sam says evenly. “He doesn’t think there’s much he can do that’ll help him down here, anyway.”

“He might be surprised. He was good with traps, wasn’t he?”

Sam shrugs. “I’ll mention it,” he says, and then “don’t wanna distract you. Have a good practice run.” Claps a hand on Clint’s shoulder. Moves toward the center of the floor.

~~

Maria is supposed to be meeting up with Sam - to talk, in secret, about their positions in the Secret Government Coup thing - but before she can make it to the Edible Plants station, she gets intercepted by a slimy, dark-haired, grinning little tool. Well. “Little” is a misnomer - he’s actually inappropriately tall.

“Loki,” she says evenly, crossing her arms. “Mind moving so I can get where I’m going?”

“Shame about this ‘quell’ thing,” he says, as though he didn’t hear her. “You seemed very interesting - I was hoping to get to know you better.” He glances down at her, eyes glittering. “Maybe we still have time, though.”

“I don’t think so. Look, I’m a little busy trying to stay alive right now, so if you could just - “

“I can help with _that_ ,” he cuts her off. “The two of us could be…a team. An alliance. You’re lost - scared. I can help you.”

“Thanks,” Maria snaps, her temper close to breaking on this moron’s face, “but I’ve already got an alliance, and I’m not undermining anyone so you can blow up in my face.”

“ _You_ have an alliance?” Loki’s brow furrows. “Who?”

“I guess you’ll just have to find out,” she says, and then “goodbye”, and with more force than she really needs to, her hand catches on his shoulder and she brushes him to the side, storms right through the fog of his cologne. Gross.

Sam’s already tapping through answers on the edible plants station, going at an impressive rate, by the time Maria gets there. “Sorry I’m late,” she says tentatively - afraid of breaking his concentration - “Loki was trying to hop sideways into an alliance with us.”

“Man, that guy gives me the creeps,” he replies, smiling. “What’d you do?”

“I brushed him off. Literally. What is all this stuff?” She waves her hand vaguely in the direction of the computer screen. There are silhouettes of plants and berries, but no clear images - she can’t tell most of them from each other, at all.

“Juuust the test I got a 12 rating for in my games,” he says - taps another button twice. The screen changes to a “completion” page, score in tow.

“Holy shit. 12?” Sam doesn’t reply, just nods, focusing on the screen. Maria glances around at other competitors, bites her lip. Nick is something of a sounding chamber - Sam is a safer bet to bounce doubts off of. She leans in and lowers her voice. “Do you…would you say that Peggy and Steve are trustworthy?”

Sam pauses for a minute, blows air out his nose. “I don’t know,” he says, voice equally low. “I think their intents are good, and they’re definitely behind this thing. They’re _angry_. But…” he taps something on the keyboard. “I don’t know. This plan might not work. And if it doesn’t, we could all be screwed.”

Maria glances back towards Loki, who’s now chatting companionably with Darcy Lewis. “We could be,” she says.

~~

“Does anyone actually know what the purpose of horses is?” Tony poses the question to an uncaring world, mostly full of makeup artists and…horses. “Anyone? Anyone at all? Do they even do anything other than smell bad and shit all over everything? No? Okay.”

“Pipe down,” Steve snaps, tapping his cane experimentally on the ground. It’s several days after training started, and the Capitol is amping up excitement with the carriage introductions. The idea of standing, in a moving carriage, in front of thousands of people, with bad legs - it’s not an appealing one.

“Right, I guess _I_ shouldn’t be the one worrying,” Stark continues, and Steve has to resist the urge to aim his cane directly between his eyes, “I mean, it’s not like…I could wind up falling out, or anything. How’re those legs doing, by the way?” He pops an apple slice into his mouth, conversationally. “Holding up okay?”

“Stop eating those. They’re for the horses.” Steve glances to Stark again, looks away. There’s an old, boiling resentment between them, years of Stark’s public, aggressive redresses against District 12 throwing a wall up.

“See, that actually brings up my first point,” he replies, “why are we feeding them? Why have horses when this whole thing could be automated by now?”

“Horses cost more. Plus, they’re attractive and fancy. The Capitol loves that shit.”

Tony gives a fake little laugh. “Oh, right, of course,” he says, then swallows the remains of the apple and continues, “I mean, you live up here, of course you’d know all about the things the Capitol likes - but then, we’re all _above_ that, aren’t - “

“Steve, we’re getting ready to go.” A third voice joins the fray, and both men blink and look towards Peggy, resplendent in a sparkling black wrap, feathers in her hair. Steve nods, taps back towards District 12’s carriage at the back of the line, and Peggy takes a moment to stare directly into - through - Tony Stark.

Somewhere in her heart, she thinks she has always hated him, ever since the year he came to their district instead of one of her own. For a moment, she thinks to say something about it - then pushes the thought away. There will be time to hate Tony Stark in the arena, and to say as many things to him about that as she likes. For now, her eyes glide over his prosthetics with something like pity, and her eyes snap to his with bitter firmness. “Mr. Stark,” she says politely, nods her head, and turns crisply to follow Steve.

~~

“Sooo…I’m not sure what our costume theme is supposed to be,” Bruce says uncertainly, staring down at his brown leather fingerless gloves.

“It’s steampunk,” Jane replies promptly. “Really, really shoddy steampunk.”

“Okay, this might sound stupid, but I…” He looks at her helplessly. “Don’t…know…what that is?”

“Don’t worry. I don’t think the Capitol knows, either.” She’s also wearing fingerless gloves. Also, an enormous hat with gears and feathers draped artistically around the lip. “It’s supposed to be Victorian England, but more…technologically advanced. Usually based on clockwork.” She motions at the layers of petticoat she’s been forced into. “Emphasis on ‘technologically advanced’. Technology. That’s us.”

“Great,” says Bruce, monotone. It’s enough to make Jane smile, anyway. “Wouldn’t want anyone in the Capitol to forget about…Technology.” Actually, the clockwork thing explains all the weird gears, even though they don’t seem to serve any purpose - or really do anything. They’re haphazardly added all over both costumes. Still, it could be worse. He glances over to Jane’s fiancé, in District 2 - Masonry has gotten the seriously lame end of the shaft. They’re in drab grays and leather aprons.

Well, Thor’s in drab leather _pants_. Bruce guesses he can’t blame him - if _he_ had muscles like that, he’d go around shirtless all the time, too.

His gaze quickly shifts, for fear of being caught staring and consequently getting smashed in like a sad watermelon, to his own alliance. Tony’s the closest, near the front and shining like the sun in what looks like an iron chest plate and more golden necklaces and bracelets than Bruce thought existed in the word. Then back, towards seven and eight.

Natasha and Clint are wearing basically the same thing that every tribute from District 7 has been stuck with for the past thirty years - skin tight brown-and-green tree imitations, and looking none too happy about it - and his gaze quickly shifts beyond to Pepper. Pepper makes Bruce…nervous. She’s thin and delicate and all her teeth are straight when she smiles, but somehow, he feels like she’s about to pounce at any second. She’s too good with people - impossible to read. Right now, she’s in loose fabrics of threaded blue, purple, and brown, thrown haphazardly around her small frame. The result is that she looks a bit like a rug rack - an _expensive_ rug rack, but a rug rack nonetheless. Coulson looks similar - but it’s hard to focus on Coulson for too long. He’s so…bland isn’t the right word. Nondescript, maybe. It’s easy to just gloss over him.

Which is exactly what Bruce does.

District 9 doesn’t catch his eye - something yellow, for grain - but District 10 certainly does. The kid with too much gel in his hair is in all black leather, save a helmet with long horns twisting up above it. Frigga, on the other hand, looks exactly as much like a queen as she always does, surrounded by furs and a wreath - more like a crown - made of white animal bones. She has a way of making everything seem below her. It sort of is, Bruce supposes.

Beyond them is 11 and 12, but it’s too far away for Bruce to see clearly. Instead, he glances towards Jane, who is (with difficulty, and around several layers of skirt) climbing into the chariot. “Time to go?” He asks genially.

“Time to go,” she replies, and fixes her hat.

~~

The doors to the oversized stable are opened, and chariots slowly begin filing out, to the great excitement of the crowd. From further back in the line, waiting patiently, Clint is grumbling.

“Oh look, technology gets steampunk,” he says, motioning helplessly towards District 3, “District 4 gets all this, this, uh, naval uniform - fishnets - stuff. What do we get?”

“Trees,” Natasha says, airily.

“Trees! _Again,_ ” Clint cries out, impassioned by an awful outfit. Natasha can relate. “District 5 gets, what is that, some Tron-looking - L.E.D. glowy magic - that doesn’t even have anything to do with power! That doesn’t have anything to do with anything!”

“They _are_ killing it, though.”

“Well, yeah, Fury and the new kid could probably kill anything their designers put them in,” he assents, “crowds love a new kid.”

“It could be worse,” Natasha says, “besides, Sam’s in green, too.” Personally, she kind of likes Sam Wilson’s outfit - it’s got flowers and live vines wrangled around his torso, and it reminds her of home. But they are griping, and compliments do not belong in a gripe session. “Alright, stand up straight and look regal.”

“How do I do that again?”

“Chin up, think about killing someone.”

“Got it.”

~~

Peggy puts a supportive arm around Steve’s back as the chariot rumbles slowly to life, but it isn’t needed - he can feel old, young strength flooding back into his legs as existence necessitates it. Maybe, he thinks, he was just weak from lack of stimulation - the result of years in a chair, lessening his abilities.

Then the chariot hits a bump, and all that hopeful desire drains away. Nope. Just as fickle as ever. Peggy’s arm grips a little more tightly.

The desire to give President Snow’s smug fucking face a righteous flip of the bird is squashed only by a love for Peggy and Sam, and for their future - and so instead, Steve holds his face aloft, as instructed. Around him, the black gauzy material flutters, giving the impression of coal dust. An excellent illusion, he is told, later. Funny, he will reply, it never seemed like an illusion when my friends were choking to death in the real thing.

But now is not then. Now, he breathes in the clean air of the Capitol, looks at them as they lean in, push each other aside for a better look at him - turns his head away. He resents them for their clean lungs, for their bright smiles, for their excited faces.

And every tribute ahead, silently, feels the same way.


	14. Interviews

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have asked, and I have delivered.
> 
> I will say that this chapter is not indicative of me picking this up as a primary project again - it has been, and will probably continue to be, very much on the backburner when it comes to work, school, other fanfictions, etc. I did, I will admit, try to abandon it and make a clean break with it, but so much time and effort has anchored me with it, and I doubt it's ever going to _really_ be dropped. Long hiatuses will plague it for sure, though.
> 
> That being said, I hope this chapter delivers on an emotional level - it's been a long time in the making. Also, if you haven't read _Daisies_ yet, you may want to give it a gander before you read this, as it's starting to be character relevant and some stuff towards the end won't make as much sense without it.
> 
> Happy spelunking.

Wearing sunglasses onstage, inside, in front of thousands of people, seems like the sort of thing that counts as inherently classless. Apparently, this rule does not apply to Tony Stark.

At his appearance, Caesar stands to applaud. So does everyone else in the audience. Tony grins and waves and yells out comments about how good it is to see everyone again, his voice a tiny wave of sound to be lost in the massive typhoon of noise that fills the auditorium. The third quarter quell is too much excitement for anyone to stop and listen. The sunglasses remain on until both figures on the stage are seated comfortably in their chairs. Tony gets comfortable immediately. This is his rodeo. It’s where he belongs.

“Great to see you again, Caesar,” he says casually, motioning broadly towards the interviewer’s shoulder, “as always, great to be here with all you wonderful people in the Capitol.” His hands, metal and flesh, clasp casually in his lap.

From backstage, Pepper and Bruce watch nervously. Tony told them just before going on that he had a bombshell he was ready to drop, and to get ready to improvise. Pepper is pretty good at improvising - Bruce is not. Hopefully, he doesn’t plan on dropping anything too hard to work around.

Caesar has gone on to ask Tony about how tragic it is that both he and Pepper are in this final game together, and Tony’s face twists suddenly into a subtle mask of anger and sorrow, which has slightly less emotional impact on the people backstage than those in the crowd. Pepper tugs at the hem of her dress nervously. “Well, Caesar,” Tony says, voice heavy and eyes cast ever-so-slightly downwards, “it’s been rough on us, frankly. We feel awful that we missed - missed our opportunity to make our love eternal.” He stares soulfully out over the crowd, swallows like he’s choking back tears. “I’m sorry, I - “

“No, no, it’s quite alright,” Caesar urges, setting a hand on Tony’s shoulder, “we’re all terribly sorry that this happened the way it did.”

Tony nods mutely, then adds “I’d rather she live than me.”

“Yes, of course.”

“That’s not - that’s not the sort of thing I usually say,” he says, then smiles weakly. “But everyone’s here to support me, and to support Pepper.” The crowd cheers an assent, and Tony grins. As the sound dies down, he pulls the microphone closer towards him. “You’ve all given Pepper and me so much love over the years - I know, if Pepper makes it back, you’ll all take care of her - and our son.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then a collective roar. From backstage, Pepper puts a hand over her mouth. “He did NOT,” she manages.

~~

Bruce looks shifty on stage, but he doesn’t have to improvise much - the crowd is still frothing righteously at Tony’s bogus announcement. The citizens want to stop the games for an imaginary baby, and Bruce doesn’t know if he’d rather laugh or rage. They care more about a fist-sized embryo than the twenty-three full-grown human beings who are headed into the arena to die.

Caesar presses him on the reason behind his secrecy, and Bruce tries to explain. “After my games, I thought I was dangerous,” he says haltingly, an embarrassed smile on his face, “I didn’t, um, I didn’t want to hurt anyone else once I left. I actually - I actually would never have left my house if Tony hadn’t, uh, convinced me to.”

“You and Mr. Stark are friends, I take it?”

“He was the only friend I had for a long time,” Bruce replies, “until I came here and met all the other victors. They’re all wonderful people - I can’t imagine living in a world without them.”

~~

Maria freezes under the lights, and this time, there’s no Nick Fury in the front row ready to catch her fall.

“We’re all so disappointed to see you here again after just cheering you on to victory last year,” Caesar says sympathetically, “this is nostalgic in the saddest way, really.”

The blood is too loud in her ears, the people in the crowd too numerous. Maria feels like she’s going to faint. Instead, she manages with “I’m just glad I’m not alone.”

“Yes, we all saw Nick Fury volunteer so he could stay with you,” he says. “We were all very touched. Weren’t we, folks?” There’s a rising cheer from the audience. The crowd has calmed down from the indignant rage of a potentially lost pregnancy - Maria is currently very popular, and she happens to look particularly good tonight. “How is your relationship with Fury? Is he as bloodthirsty as everyone says? Hard to get along with?”

Maria blinks, moves her mouth silently for a moment, then shakes her head. “No, he’s never - I’ve never been afraid of him,” she says, slowly growing weary of the frequency of this question, “he was my mentor last year in the games, and he’s always been - very parental, and very kind. When the conditions of the third quarter quell were announced, he came and sat with me for a long time.”

“I must say, we at the Capitol have never seen that side of him - thank you for telling us that,” Caesar says after a moment, “it must be hard knowing one of you will have to say goodbye.”

Her eyes flicker between Caesar and the microphone. She wants to slap it out of his hands and strangle him, but instead, her eyes well up with tears. “Yes,” she manages, “it is, yes.”

~~

She expects Fury to give her a talking-to for crying on stage, but instead, he wraps an arm around her and squeezes her shoulders. “You did good,” he says, sort of gruffly, “drumming up sympathy is a worthy tactic.” And then he’s gone, sweeping out onto the stage, looking tall and powerful and noble. It’s Steve Rogers, of all people, that comes to stand by her while she tries to reel her tears back in.

“Real tears or fake ones?” He asks. Maria feels like she shouldn’t be surprised by his bluntness by now, but she is anyway. She sniffs hard and wipes at her eyes.

“Real, but - not because of Caesar. I just hate speaking in front of crowds,” she admits. Rogers smiles.

“Don’t worry, Fury can do damage control. Besides, the crowd’s still riled up by Stark. I’m not a fan of that guy, but honestly? That was a stroke of genius. I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day. Here,” he says suddenly, and passes her a tissue. She thanks him and blows her nose - and by the time she looks up again, he’s gone. For an old man with back problems, he sure can move fast.

~~

Natasha and Clint do their interview together. It’s easier that way. They hold hands for added adorability.

“You two have been best friends since _childhood_ ,” Caesar says passionately, “and Clint, we saw how you volunteered to be with Natasha. Is there anything else…between you two?”

They look at each other for a moment - in a practiced show of affection, Clint squeezes Natasha’s hand, and she nods before turning back to Caesar. “We…wanted it to be a surprise,” she says delicately, and Clint wraps an arm around her shoulders. “We got engaged two months ago.”

From the wings of the auditorium, listening to the crowd gasp and ‘oo’ at district 7, Pepper nervously wipes her palms on her dress. It’s blue and sparkling, with a back that dips down the waist and a seventeenth century hoop skirt that looks like layers on layers of woven fabric. Normally, she would appreciate the shit out of it - but she has to go onstage in only a few minutes and pretend to be _pregnant_. How she's supposed to ‘ _act pregnant_ ', as Tony had suggested backstage in a heated, whispered argument, she has no idea.

In front of the crowd, Natasha’s making a show of crying into Clint’s shoulder while he holds her, looking all stern and manly. Pepper rolls her eyes. If there’s one thing Natasha is good at, it's lying, but God, she wishes they’d just cut it short and get out of there already.

“And on to district 8! Textiles, home of Phillip Coulson and the beautiful Pepper Potts! Please give a big round of applause to the woman we’ve been wanting to see since the beginning of the evening!”

So there was such a thing as wishing too soon. Pepper swallows, nods to Clint and Natasha, who give her a twin pair of encouraging smiles as they pass, and steps out to take Caesar’s hand, smiling with all her teeth. “Thank you _so much_ , Caesar - thank you, Panem!” She waves with her free hand, smiles in the face of the beast. 

The Capitol. Oh, how she wishes she could burn the whole place down.

Once they’ve been seated, Caesar leans forward like a teenager who’s just gotten word that so-and-so cheated on what’s-her-face and Pepper is the only one who has All The Dirt. “So. Pepper. I’ll get straight to the point,” he says, staring intently, “we’ve heard word this evening that you might be - a _mother_. Is that true?”

Pepper waits for the outcry from the audience to die down, then sets a hand on her empty stomach. She’s sort of hungry, actually. She wasn’t allowed to have lunch, in case she wouldn’t fit into the dress afterwards. “Yes, it’s true,” she says, and lets the audience fill the room with noise.

It takes up multiple minutes of Pepper’s short interview time, and Caesar only has time for a single question by the end. “Is there anything you want to say to us - about all of this?”

“Yes, I - “ Pepper stares directly out into the crowd. “I only wish there were - some way - to cancel the games,” she says helplessly, “at least to put them off for a few months, until we - until we could be sure - I’m sorry,” she says, voice breaking, and bursts into tears.

~~

“Does anyone actually _believe_ this?” Sam says, arms crossed and staring at the television in front of him. “How many people have cried tonight? What exactly are we accomplishing?”

Peggy shrugs. “Have you seen the audience gauges?” She replies. “The other victors - we’re all angry. None of us want to be here, none of us want to end like this. People want to stop the games from happening. That’s what all the crying is for.”

Sam turns to her, sees her in her interview dress for the first time. She looks so much younger, like a twenty-year-old again. “Are you angry?”

“Angrier than anyone else,” she says, quietly.

“What are you going to do about it?”

She shrugs. “You’ll see.”

~~

Sam thinks the best way to go about this is just with honesty, which sets him apart from every other victor currently moving around backstage. He smiles and shakes Caesar’s hand, but then pulls a serious face and keeps it for the rest of the interview.

“I believe all of us up at the Capitol have heard rumors - about you and Miss Carter. Is there any truth in that?”

Sam blinks a few times, confused for a moments, before shaking his head. “I hate to ruin any hopes or expectations in the Capitol,” he says, “but Peggy’s just a friend.” There’s a general sigh of disappointment.

“Then, is there someone else? Anyone else in your life?”

For a moment, Sam considers saying something witty, or shocking, or telling everyone he and Steve Rogers are Totally Doing It, and then thinks, what the hell, they can’t punish him for honesty now. “Well, for the past few years, I’ve just been focused on taking care of my family - we have bigger families out in District 11,” he says as an aside to the audience, “I’ve got a lot of younger siblings, and when we lost our parents I had to take care of them myself.”

“Very mature,” Caesar begins, but Sam catches him before he goes on to a new question.

“But,” he says, and there’s a sudden rush of attention, “I’ve sort of - met someone nice, recently. Really recently.”

“Someone in the games?”

“Yeah,” Sam nods, then adds “but maybe I shouldn’t…maybe I shouldn’t say.”

“Well, _we_ wouldn’t judge, would we?” Caesar looks appealingly out at the audience, who, on cue, bursts into applause. Sam bites his lip and nods. If this doesn’t go well, he’s going to have to live with this mistake for the rest of his potentially very short life.

“Well - I mean…” he swallows, nervously. “Miss Hill is pretty nice.”

~~

Fortunately for Sam, Maria isn’t watching from backstage. Unfortunately, Fury is.

He can rationalize this a few ways. Either Sam makes Maria look desirable, or he makes her look vulnerable. Maybe, he’s trying to make an excuse for the two of them working together early on in the game, make it look like a crush, but that devalues the power of the alliance. Maybe looking weak, in this case, is good - or maybe it makes them look like easy prey. The last thing they need is to be hunted down by other groups.

Either way, Sam clearly didn’t run this by anyone else, and for that, Fury is displeased.

~~

Peggy smiles, but it’s pulled thin, tense, and hard.

Caesar looks slightly discomforted. “We’ve seen many tears tonight,” he says, glancing sideways at her. “But not from you, Miss Carter. You tell me - you tell us you’re angry. Is that true?”

She starts laughing. “Obviously, I’m angry,” she snaps through it, “why wouldn’t I be angry?” Her glare is hard, and sharp, and poisonous. Her lips are white. She’s wrapped in black and red, thoughts of cinders coming to mind, hot coals at the bottom of a fire. A dragon’s mouth just before it blows out. “We were told - _I_ was told - that the Hunger Games were something we only had to do _once_. You live through a nightmare as a child so you can have them as an adult but you can live, and you’re _safe_ , and you’re never hungry again. But _now_ \- “ She gesticulates wildly, one arm swinging, “you want to _kill_ us again! How _charming_. How _clever_. What a _gift_ , what a _pleasure_ to receive this from the Capitol. And make no mistake, we _are_ receiving this _from the Capitol,_ ” she snarls, points an accusing finger out into the crowd. “ _You_ are doing this to _us_.” 

“Well, uh, moving right - “

“ _Let me be perfectly clear,_ ” Peggy snaps, rolling right over Caesar’s hapless attempts to change the subject, “if you are in this audience or watching at home, in the Capitol, and you do _nothing_ to right the wrongs of _your government_ , then this is as much your fault as it is President Snow’s. And quite frankly? _Fuck you._ Fuck you! Fuck _anyone_ who had _anything_ to do with that.” She whirls around to the interviewer, glittering black and red, and points in his face. “Fuck you, Caesar. Tell Snow I said fuck him, too. Fuck all of you. All of you!” She flips two v-signs and extends them as far as she can to the audience.

Even after she’s left, storming off in a flurry of fire and anger, Caesar is struggling for words. Finally, he settles on an uncomfortable “well, er, one woman’s opinion,” and looks to his hands as though he ever carried cards. “Er, our - our _final_ guest of the evening,” he says, and kicks back into his comfortable rhythm, “the mysterious victor who we’ve waited - not one night - not one quell - but _fifty years_ to see in the flesh,” he whispers, dramatic effect washing out over an audience drinking up fervor like potent alcohol, “the victor of the very first quarter quell - Sir! Steve! Rogers!”

Backstage, Steve sighs and taps his cane. Better get this over with.

The stage is awash in noise and lights, cheering and strobing in equal parts, and Steve isn’t sure he’s going to make it to his chair without vomiting. Caesar shakes his thin hand, wired by bone. He doesn’t even bother smiling back.

They sit. The audience hushes. Steve grips his cane like a lifeline and waits for a stupid question. “So! _Mr._ Rogers,” Caesar says, trying to make contact with watery blue eyes and failing spectacularly, “no one in the Capitol has seen hide nor hair of you for almost half a century. Any reason for the secretive nature?”

_And am I born to die?_  


Steve’s eyes flick up. “Yes,” he says, slowly. Words run vicious and fast through his brain, a conversation with a man in a tan jacket, religion, Bucky, head down, stained glass windows. He knows what he is supposed to say. Media blackout. Against my religion. Instead, he thinks of a boy with a square jaw and soft hair, a religion all of his own, and he feels his teeth grit together. “I’ve been staying out of the spotlight because I was told to do so.”

_To lay this body down?_  


“You were _told_ to do so?” There’s a general gasp from the audience. “By whom?”

_And must my trembling spirit fly,_  


“By an agent of the Capitol,” Steve says calmly, blinks once, “a man sent to my home by President Snow.”

_Into a world unknown?_  


If Peggy’s shrieking rage had made anyone uncomfortable, it wasn’t nearly by such a disturbing margin as Steve’s soft, level voice did. No one even dared whisper, as though petrified his eyes would focus on them if they so much as looked away. Steve does not smile. “I was an embarrassment to the Capitol. Thin. Weak. Slow - crippled.” He spits the word out with a particular venom. “It would look terrible if someone like me was found the victor. Ugly. A stain on a precious record. When I won the first quarter quell,” he says slowly, “someone I loved was taken from me. Everything I loved. I was kept captive by the fear that if I acted out, my punishment would be laid across their skin - but that fear cannot plague me. It has been too long, and surely they are dead now.”

His eyes cast down, fluttering weakly, then straight out. “Let the games come,” he says, “let them kill me. The part of me worth protecting is already dead.”

~~

The room is quiet and dark when Steve returns, and he sinks into a chair. Far away, in various greenrooms backstage, he can hear loud discussions - some angry, some amused, all talking about the potential cancellation of the games - but he refuses to entertain the notion. The games will go on. The civilians could be as angry as every hellhound in the devil’s lair and the games would still go on. There has not been a year without the games in three quarters of a century, and tradition like that won’t stop here. Not without outside help, anyway.

Eventually, the sound of arguments and fights dim and die away, slowly, room by room. Still Steve does not move. He has grown to appreciate the darkness and stillness of old age, and the past few weeks have been anything but dark or still. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see the glowing blue of stained glass on a warm summer day. But it escapes him - he’s never seen blue - not properly - doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be imagining or remembering.

He sits there for a long time, remembering.

Long after the whole backstage has gone silent and empty, a pair of feet join him, and Steve opens an eye to see Tony Stark sitting in a chair across from him. “Oh, good,” Tony says, casually, “you _are_ awake. I was worried you’d fallen asleep. Peggy’s worried about you.”

“Well, now she’ll know I’m fine,” Steve replies, “you should tell her where I am. And that I’m not dead.”

Tony doesn’t move from his chair. “Not going to go meet her yourself? What, trying to will yourself to death in this chair?”

“It wouldn’t be a terrible way to go out,” he says, closes his eyes again. He’s comfortable. “Give Peggy one less thing to be worried about.”

He waits for Tony’s trademark un-laugh, that little fake chuckle of derision and mockery, but nothing comes but more silence. Perhaps, he considers, Tony is trying to come up with something clever to say - surely, it can’t ALL come right off the tip of the tongue - and settles in for a verbal battle. But nothing comes. When he opens his eyes again, Tony isn’t even looking at him, staring mistily into a middle distance towards the wall. And when his words come, it’s nothing Steve prepared himself for.

“I didn’t hate you for living in the Capitol,” he mutters, “I hated that you didn’t help Yinsen.”

It takes Steve a moment to process this. “Yinsen?” Even as he says it, it feels familiar in his mouth.

“He was a tribute from District 12,” Tony says, “in the second quarter quell. He - I met him. We formed an alliance during the game. So…what, twenty-four, twenty-five years ago?”

Steve stares at the arm of his chair blankly. Yinsen. It’s a name he almost knows, but can’t seem to place - some poor kid, surely. But sharp comments seem crass here, ugly in such a soft, barren conversation. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “I don’t remember - I don’t remember any of them.”

Tony doesn’t reply for a moment. “I can't - I won’t say I don’t understand that approach,” he manages, “but for me, I couldn’t - I can’t forget him. And finding out that you finally helped a victor - only a few years later - I just couldn’t understand. I can’t - I can’t.”

“I understand,” Steve says, and again he feels the weight of a hundred and one corpses on his back.

The silence, the emptiness swirls around both of them like thin, cold twists of fog, and not for the first time, Steve feels the way he sinks into his own chair under the heavy crush of age. He feels trapped within his skeleton, laced in by blood and tissue sealed in frozen, shriveled skin, failed by every ticking moment his organs continue to pump. His spine creaks as he leans forward to stand, and he gives in to the gentle indicative prods of discomfort, settles back.

“Who did they take from you?” Tony asks. The question is an inevitability in the flowering quiet, and the sound of his voice is only as startling as the continued function of the universe.

Steve closes his eyes and flexes his fingers, and tries to remember what it felt like to have them wrapped in someone else’s. He can only feel the air around his hand. “My friend,” he whispers, and his fingers clench into a fist.


End file.
